Fujian Tulou sites
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How it came to be
The Fujian tulou are large earthen communal houses standing among the fields of the mountains of southwestern Fujian. The World Heritage site covers 46 of them, spread over more than 120 km inland from the Taiwan Strait. Their thick rammed-earth walls rise three to five storeys, and round or square buildings enclose a central courtyard; one could house up to 800 people.
Each has a single entrance and windows facing out only above the first floor. A whole clan lived in one building, called a little kingdom for the family; it was divided vertically, each family holding two or three rooms on every floor. Both the Hakka and the Minnan people built them.
Jiqinglou in the Chuxi cluster was built in 1419, under the Yongle Emperor of the Ming. The most elaborate tulou date from the 17th and 18th centuries, and Zhenchenglou is known as the prince of tulou. The first scholarly article on them appeared in 1957. They were inscribed in 2008.
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