Fujian Tulou

Prologue: A Ring of Mountains in the Moonlight

On an autumn night, among the green hills of southwest Fujian, the great gate of a round tulou stands shut. Moonlight falls on the rammed-earth wall — more than a metre thick, windowless at ground level; within, the sound of water in the well mingles with talk under the eaves, and lamp after lamp lights up the ringed wooden galleries, like a ring of mountains overturned among the hills.

No one knows which clan raised the first tulou, or in which year. What is certain is that this ring of walls settled a wandering people, at last, into these green hills and waters.

The Hakka Who Came South

From the Western Jin onward, the wars of the Central Plains pushed wave after wave of migrants south of the Yangtze. Crossing the mountains into southwest Fujian, they merged over generations with the local people and were called “Hakka” — guest families, people dwelling as guests. Exile did not wash away their memory of home; it carved clan life deeper into their bones.

The mountains were steep and the forests deep; bandits, wild beasts and clan feuds hung like swords overhead. The Hakka rammed raw earth into the outer walls of vast round or square buildings — walls thick, gates heavy, no windows at ground level. Once the gate closed, the lives and property of a whole clan were sheltered. Within lay a courtyard, an ancestral hall and rings of wooden rooms: hundreds of kin under one roof, eating from one stove.

The Four Rings of Chengqi Lou

Tulou building began in the Song and Yuan and flourished in the Ming and Qing. Yongding’s Chengqi Lou, over seventy metres across, with four concentric rings and more than three hundred rooms, is called the “King of Tulou”; the five buildings of Tianluokeng in Nanjing — “four dishes and a soup” — are the classic image of a tulou cluster; and Hua’an’s Eryi Lou is famed for its elaborate defensive system — legendary hidden passages and layer upon layer of galleries that researchers still puzzle over today.

Rammed-earth walls have stood through centuries of wind and rain — a “wonder of the world’s vernacular architecture.”

2008: A Living Heritage

In 2008, the Fujian Tulou were inscribed on the World Heritage List under criteria (iii), (iv) and (v), covering 46 representative buildings in Yongding, Nanjing and Hua’an counties.

For the people who live inside, inscription changed the name, not the days — many tulou remain homes today. When cooking smoke rises, the sound of water in the well and the talk under the eaves keep this living heritage continuing its eight hundred years of everyday life.

Epilogue: The Gate Opens Again

When dawn light crosses the ridges, the heavy wooden gate creaks open. The cowherd, the schoolchildren, the woman carrying buckets — one by one they step into the sun. The ring of walls never kept people in; it keeps the shape of a family’s home, settled here for a thousand years.

Outstanding Universal Value (OUV)

• Criterion (iii): The tulou are a unique testimony to the migration, settlement and mutual-aid traditions of the Hakka people.
• Criterion (iv): In technique, form and settlement layout, the giant rammed-earth buildings are outstanding examples of architecture.
• Criterion (v): The settlement system of tulou, terraces and woodland is an excellent example of human interaction with the environment.

Facts at a Glance

• 46 representative tulou, inscribed in 2008
• Chengqi Lou is some 70 m across — the “King of Tulou”; the largest round buildings are all protected monuments