Kaiping Diaolou and Villages

The Kaiping Diaolou and Villages, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, represent one of the more distinctive architectural landscapes in southern China: multi-story fortified towers built primarily in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Kaiping locals who had emigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia, and Southeast Asia and returned with both new wealth and exposure to Western architectural styles. The result is a striking hybrid look, with Chinese village layouts topped by towers featuring Greek columns, Roman arches, Gothic spires, and even Baroque flourishes, built tall and fortified against the bandits who plagued the rural Pearl River Delta at the time. Four village clusters make up the core UNESCO listing: Zilicun (Zili Village), the most visited and best-preserved cluster with nine diaolou including the iconic Ming Shi Lou; Sanmenli; Majianglong, known for its cluster set among bamboo groves and rice paddies; and Jinjiangli. Because Kaiping sits considerably further from Guangzhou than the other entries on this list, most visitors either join an organized day tour that bundles transport, or take a long-distance coach to Kaiping's Yici Bus Station followed by a local taxi to the village clusters, since public transport within the countryside around Kaiping is sparse. The reward for the extra travel time is a genuinely rural, uncrowded atmosphere compared to closer, more heavily visited day trips, along with the chance to climb inside several furnished diaolou towers that show how emigrant families actually lived and stored valuables behind iron doors and gun-slit windows.