The Kaiping diaolou are fortified residential towers built by returned emigrants between roughly 1900 and 1940, scattered through the countryside in baroque, neoclassical, and Moorish styles that look entirely improbable rising from rice paddies and lotus ponds. There are over 1,800 of them in Kaiping County, of which a few dozen are in serious repair and accessible to visitors. The UNESCO World Heritage designation in 2007 covers four main village clusters, each with a joint ticket.
The towers range from simple three-storey structures with basic crenellations to elaborate five- and six-storey buildings with turrets, domes, coloured-glass windows, and interiors furnished in a mix of Chinese and European styles — Shanghai-made European furniture sitting alongside ancestral altars and Cantonese carved wooden beds. Many have been locked since their owners emigrated, the clocks stopped, the calendars still on the year of departure.