Nanjing Hakka Tulou

Tulou (土楼) is a unique and mysterious Hakka (客家) architecture with a thick earth wall enclosure found only in the mountainous areas in southwestern Fujian province bordering Guangdong in Southern China. What is amazing about these earth buildings is the fact that in spite of the earth wall, some of them are more than 700 years old, surviving through centuries of natural elements, yet still standing solid. There are more than 20,000 earth buildings to be found in southern China.

Hakka Tulou

Tulou in Nanjing is a material model on the traditional blood-relation oriented ideological culture of Chinese civilization. Nanjing County lies in the south of Fujian Province, west of Zhangzhou City, along the middle and upper reaches of the Jiulong River. At the end of Song Dynasty, Han people began to settle in the area and built Tulou. The Tulou in Nanjing are highly concentrated in the town of Shuyang (沭阳), Meilin (梅林), Chuangchang, Nankeng (南坑), Kuiyang (葵阳) and Hexi (河西), which are linked together along the Jiulong River (九龙江).

Hakka Tulou

Tianluokeng Tulou Group (田螺坑土楼) is one of the best known Hakka Tulou groups located in Tianluokeng Natural Village of Shangban Administrative Village of Shuyang Town in Nanjing Country. The construction of the building cluster began at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and finished in the 1960’s, covering more than 600 years. The cluster consists of a square earth building at the center of a quincunx, surrounded by four round earth buildings, or more exactly, 3 round earth buildings and one oval shape earth building, figuratively nicknamed “four dishes with a soup”. The five buildings stand in a straight row along the mountain, forming a wonderful picture, combining artificiality and natural beauty.