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Tianluokeng tulou cluster is one of the better known groups of Fujian Tulou. It is located in Fujian province, Zhangzhou City, Nanjing County, Shuyang Township, Tian Luo Keng Village (literally "Snail Pit" Village) in southern China.
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 "四菜一汤, Si cai yi tang" (four dishes with a soup).
A tulou (lit. "earth building") is a unique architecture found only in the mountainous areas bordering Fujian and Guangdong in southern China. The "Earth building" is an enclosed buildings, usually square or circular in shape, with a very thick earth wall (up to 6 feet thick) and wooden skeletons, from three to five storeys high, housing up to 80 families. These earth buildings have only one entrance, guarded by 4–5-inch-thick (100–130 mm) wooden doors re-enforced with an outer shell of iron plate. The top level of these earth building have gun holes for defence against bandits. In spite of the earth wall, some of them are more than 700 years old, surviving thru centuries of natural elements, including earthquakes, yet still standing solid. There are more than 35,000 earth buildings to be found in southern China, among them a little over 3,000 have been classified as Fujian Tulou
On July 7, 2008 UNESCO 32nd session held in Quebec city Canada, Tianluokeng tulou cluster was inscribed as one of 46 Fujian Tulou World Heritage Sites.
The five earth buildings at the Snail Pit village are:
The square earth building named Buyun building(Reaching the Cloud building) at the center of the quincunx. It was the first earth building at this site, built in 1796. It is three storeys high, each storey has 26 rooms, four sets of stairs, and a circular corridor in front of the rooms. The Buyun building was burnt down by bandits in 1936, and rebuilt in 1953 according to the original shape.
The Hechang building, a three storey high round earth building,
Zhenchang building, three storey, round shape, 26 rooms per storey, built in 1930
Ruiyun building, built in 1936,
The last Wenchang building of 1966, 3 storeys, 32 rooms per storey.
The cluster is located about four hours drive by motor coach or taxi from Xiamen, through winding and bumpy narrow mountain roads (Fujian Provincial Highway 309 (S309), or county roads).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianluokeng_Tulou_cluster 360-degree panorama photography by yunzeng liu
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Fujian Province, referred to as "Min ", the provincial capital Fuzhou, southeast China's coastal provinces. Located in the north latitude 23 ° 33 'to 28 ° 20 ', longitude 115 ° 50 'to 120 ° 40 ' between adjacent Zhejiang Province, northeast, west, northwest and bordering Jiangxi Province, Southwest China and Guangdong Province is connected, and east of Taiwan Strait, and across the island. Most things for the 480 km wide, up to about 530 km north-south, the land area of 124,000 square kilometers. Administrative divisions Fujian Province, the Matsu Islands (Matsu), Kinmen Islands (Kinmen County) and Wuchiu Island (an Putian County, Kinmen County hosting), the actual effective control by the Taiwan authorities.