CHINA ~ Kaiping Diaolou and Villages - UNESCO ~

... Nice view of a famous historic site... a series of fortified multi-storey towers known as "Diaolou"... built by returning Chinese immigrants from America, Canada, Hong Kong and Malaysia... served mainly as protection against forays by bandits, a few of them also served as living quarters... the strong but rather plain diaolou were constructed very close to a village... in times of banditry, each family would be allowed in to the tower (they usually had their own room) as long as they had paid towards the construction and upkeep of this communal defense...  mixing Chinese and western architectural styles, these towers are scattered across the landscape... many of them can be entered and some can even be climbed...  a must see place when visiting Guangdong province...Thanks Lee!ツ

Kaiping is situated in south-central Guangdong in the southwest of the Pearl River Delta region.

The towers were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s, when there were more than 3,000 of these structures. Three separate forms can be distinguished: communal towers, residential towers and watch towers.

The name comes from a combination, of two Chinese characters. Diao means stone and lou mean tower.

Of the approximately 1,800 diaolou still standing today, 20 of them in the following areas make up the  WHS UNESCO site since 2007:
Sanmenli Village
Zili Village & the Fang Clan Watch Tower
Majianlong Village Cluster

Jinjiangli Village

Stamps:

Song CI 1186-1249

(Issued 13-04-2016)

Children's Games

(Issued 31-05-2017)

Marine Silk Road

(Issued 10-09-2016)

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