Zili Village

Zili is a village in Tangkou township outside Kaiping and the best-known of the four components of the UNESCO site "Kaiping Diaolou and Villages", inscribed in 2007. About fifteen diaolou towers and lu villas from the first half of the 20th century stand among rice paddies, ponds and banana groves. They were paid for by villagers who had left to work in the Americas and Southeast Asia.

The towers protected families from bandits and floods: thick walls, narrow windows with iron shutters, loopholes and galleries at the top. Owners decorated the upper floors with what they had seen overseas, so a village tower in Guangdong ended up with Roman arches, colonnades, balustrades and domes.

The main building is Mingshi Lou, built in 1925; its rooms still hold the furniture and household items of the time. The best view of it and the neighbouring towers is across the pond near the entrance. Chikan is about six kilometres away.

Address

Zili Village, Tangkou, Kaiping

On the map