Yongding Tulou

The Yongding Tulou are the most famous cluster of Hakka earthen roundhouses in Fujian, and the Hongkeng Folk Village is the most visited section of that cluster. The village packs in a dozen tulou of different sizes and periods, ranging from the showpiece Zhencheng Lou (1912) — a circular structure with a ground-floor ring laid out like an octagonal bagua symbol — to the tiny Rusheng Lou, barely 17 metres across and said to be the smallest tulou in the county.

Yongding County is about 70 kilometres south of Longyan city. Public buses run from the long-distance bus station, taking around 90 minutes, or private minibuses operate from outside the station. The villages are most rewarding in the early morning and late afternoon when day-trippers from Xiamen have not yet arrived or have already left. A few tulou operate as guesthouses — spending a night inside is strongly recommended if your schedule allows it. Bring cash; card payment is unreliable in the villages.

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A story
The Hakka people built their great earthen fortresses not from paranoia alone but from hard experience — arriving as migrants from northern China over many centuries, they faced raids from established local clans and needed buildings that doubled as defences. A single tulou could house an entire clan of 80 families behind walls up to 1.8 metres thick, with no ground-floor windows and a single iron-reinforced gate. When that gate was shut and the well inside provided water, the community inside could hold out for months.