Earth Tower of Hakka

Located in the Yongding County, Longyan City, Fujian Province, Earth Tower of Hakka is a kind of unique and fantastic residential building all over the world and a wonderful work of China’s ancient buildings. It is well known for its long history, unique style, large scale, exquisite structure, varied functions and rich connotation. With extremely high value of history, art and science, Earth Tower of Hakka is praised as “a shining pearl of oriental civilization”, “the world architecture geeks”, and “the unique and fantastic residential building all over the world”. It was added into the World Heritage List in 2008.

History

Earth Tower of Hakka has a history of more than 1,000 years. At the southwestern mountainous area of Fujian Province, where the Earth Tower of Hakka lies, some of the original Hakka migrated and settled because of the war and famine. Clustering is not only the deeply rooted traditional idea in the Central China but a way to gather strength and defend enemies. In order to protect themselves from bandits and wild beasts, they used local materials to build tall, multi-storey circular earthen buildings where a whole family or clan could live in, that is the Earth Tower. It was firstly appeared in the Song Dynasty (960-1278) and developed in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1912).

More than 20,000 earth towers are scattered in the Yongding County, including over 5,000 three storey, 360 round earth towers and 4,000 square style towers. These grand buildings spread along the river in a dotted manner, which are harmoniously coexisted with green mountains, clear water, emerald bamboos, mill wheels and farmlands and consisting a colorful and florid picture.

Architectural style

As a collective building made of earth, Earth Tower of Hakka are presented in many styles, such as the round, the arch, the square, the tetragon, the pentagon, and the dustpan shape. The round ones are the most famous. They are divided into three classes of sizes namely, small, medium and big. The small ones are usually with a diameter of 50 meters, 2 to 3 storeys tall and 21 to 28 rooms. The medium ones are usually 3 to 4 stories and 30 to 40 rooms. The larger round buildings are usually with a diameter of about 80 meters, 4 to 5 stories tall and about 100 rooms, which accommodate about 800 people.

Earth Tower of Hakka are unique in structure. They are usually three stories. Inside the tower, the ground storey is served as the entrance, the middle storey is used for storage and the top one is used as the bedroom. Besides these, the glorious window, porch and eaves make this kind of structure the geek in the architecture history.

Zhengcheng Tower

As the prince of the earth buildings, Zhengcheng Tower was built in 1992. It is located at the Hongkeng Village, Hukeng Town and covers an area of 5,000 square meters. Being built according to the Eight Diagrams, Zhengcheng Tower is the best embodiment of “Integration of Heaven, Earth and Man” and is praised as the prefect combination of Chinese Architecture with Western Culture. Gardens, schools, restaurants are provided in the tower. In 1986, the models of Lama Temple in Beijing, the Great Wall and the Zhengcheng Tower representing Chinese ancient architecture were exhibited in the international exhibition of architecture models in Los Angeles, America.

Chengqi Tower

As the king of the earth buildings, Chengqi Tower was built in the region of Emperor Kangxi in Qing Dynasty. It is located at the Gaotou Village, Yongding County and covers an area of 5,376 square meters. With a diameter of 73 meters, a perimeter of 229.3 meters, four circles and 400 rooms, Chengqi Tower has been weathered in the wind and rain for more than 300 years. A serious of stamps issued by the Post Office was diagrammed with the Chengqi Tower in 1986 and was named as the best stamp in Japan that year.