The most distinctive folk houses in Fujian are the “earth buildings”.

Tulou houses with unique styles are scattered in Yongding, Wuping, Shanghang in western Fujian and Nanjing, Pinghe, Hua'an, Zhangpu and other places in southwestern Fujian. Its shape, decoration and construction technology are rare in the world. Earth buildings are commonly known as "raw earth buildings". Because most of them were built by the Hakka people in Fujian, they are also called "Hakka earth buildings". It is made of raw soil as the main building material, mixed with fine sand, lime, glutinous rice, brown sugar, bamboo chips, wooden strips, etc., and is built by repeatedly kneading, pounding and pressing. The roof is covered with fire-heated tiles and will not be damaged for a long time. The earth building can be up to four or five stories high, allowing three or four generations to live together in the same building.

This type of civil-framed house with raw soil as its walls has one of the most diverse styles among traditional Chinese houses. There are many types such as circle, square, semicircle, ellipse, cross-chair, pentagon, eight trigrams, five-phoenix, peach-shaped and irregular shapes, among which the round, square, cross-chair and five-phoenix towers are the most common ones.

The square-shaped building is called the "Sifang Building" in Yongding and the "Four-Corner Building" in Nanjing. It has the earliest origin and is the most complete, closed and sturdy. This kind of earth building is about 16 meters high and can have up to 5 floors. Each floor is about 3 meters apart. The walls are thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top. The bottom wall is more than 1 meter thick and becomes narrower as you go higher. The top layer is only 0.8 meters thick. The building covers an area of ??up to thousands of square meters. The total construction area of ??the five floors is about 3,000 square meters. There are more than 20 rooms on each floor and one foyer. The whole building has about 100 rooms. There are stairs leading to the upper floors in the four directions of the building, east, west, north and south. One building can accommodate more than 100 people from 20 to 30 households. Representatives include "Hegui Tower" in Pushan Village, Meilin Township, Nanjing, "Da Fu Di" in Wuping, and "Fuxin Tower" in Xiazhai Village, Hulei Township, Yongding, etc. The "Fuxin Building" in Yongding, also known as the "Big Building" and "Huoshao Building", was first built in the fourth year of the Tang Dynasty (769) and has a history of more than 1,200 years. The residents in the building have been passed down to 27 generations. The "Wushi Building" in Guzhu Township, Yongding is a special type of square building structure. Its corridors are designed between the walls, saving a lot of wood and providing strong concealment.

The round building is also called "round building" or "earth round building", and the Hakka people in Yongding call it "zhai". The circular cylindrical round building is the most representative type of Fujian earth building. Yongding, Nanjing, Pinghe, Shanghang and Hua'an are all dominated by this type of earth buildings. It is said that the Round Tower was developed from a military camp more than 1,300 years ago during the reign of Tang general Chen Yuanguang during the Ping Dynasty in Fujian. Round buildings have a huge and majestic appearance, with diameters of 50 to 70 meters abound. The "Chengqi Tower" Yuanzhai in Gaobei Village, Guzhu Township, Yongding County, Western Fujian, was built during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty (1662-1723). It is 73 meters in diameter and consists of a large ring, a small ring and three rings with the same center. It is a huge castle formed by a set of rings. Each ring is separated by a well-shaped patio. The circumference of the outer ring is 229 meters long, and the bottom earth wall is 1.5 meters thick. The outermost ring is 4 stories high, the middle ring is 2 stories, and the third ring is a bungalow. At the center of the central circle is a trigram-shaped octagonal ancestral hall. There are 400 rooms in the whole building, with a total area of ??5376 square meters. There are more than 600 people in 80 households. The "Pingzuo Juening" Yuanzhai in Lufeng Village, Luxi Township, Pinghe County, southern Fujian, has a circular diameter of 77 meters. It is the largest diameter round earth building known to be still inhabited in the world. The main building is 4 stories high, about 14.5 meters high, with 77 bays on each floor. There are still 77 households with more than 250 people living there, all of whom belong to the same clan with the same surname Ye. It was built in the early years of Kangxi's reign in the Qing Dynasty. The construction lasted for 40 years. At its peak, more than 700 people lived there. Ordinary round buildings usually cover an area of ??more than 1,000 square meters. Generally speaking, most Yongding round buildings have three floors, while Nanjing round buildings often have 4 to 5 floors. It is about 123 meters high, with about 30 houses on each floor and 2 to 4 staircases (depending on the size of the building). Many round buildings build a small round building covering an area of ??20 to 30 square meters. It is used as a place for ancestor worship and entertainment, with a unique style. Usually, the small round building can accommodate more than 20 households and 100 people. The architectural style of the round building is similar to that of the square building in terms of the thickness of the earthen walls. The difference is that the specifications of the rooms on each floor of the building are more uniform and standardized than that of the square building. The round building also overcomes some of the shortcomings of the square building. For example, a square building with four corners has dark light, poor ventilation, is close to wooden stairs, and is noisy. However, a round building eliminates corners, has uniform component sizes, relatively simple construction, and a simpler roof. Compared with the square building, the difference between the good and bad rooms is not obvious, which is conducive to the distribution within the clan. In addition, the area of ??a circle with the same perimeter is 1.273 times that of a square. Therefore, a round building has a larger inner courtyard space than a square building. Because there are no corners, the need for large timbers is reduced accordingly, and the performance of wind, earthquake and fire resistance is higher. The "Shengping Building" in Baoshan Village, Shajian Township, Hua'an County, built in the 29th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1601), is the only three-story round building in southern Fujian whose exterior walls are all made of strips of stone. It is also a unit structure. Because it is not protected from wind and rain, the eaves are small and look like stone mills. This stone round building is a unique branch of the earth round building family in Fujian, but its earthquake resistance is not as good as that of the earth building.

In Nanjing and other places, there is also a raw earth building called "Jiaozhi Building", whose architectural form is roughly the same as the square building. But the front row house is slightly lower, with a bungalow or 2 floors, and the left and right sides are slightly higher, with 2 floors or 3 floors, just like the "armrests" of the seat. The rear row house is the highest, up to 3 floors or more, just like the "armrests" of the seats. With its backrest, the whole building looks like a "top chair", so it is commonly known as "top chair building". Its characteristics are that the earthen wall is low in front and high in back, with sufficient sunshine and fresh air, which is warm in winter and cool in summer. There are fifty or sixty rooms, housing 15 households with about sixty or seventy people. The "Changyuan Building" in Shiqiao Village, Shuyang Township, Nanjing County, built in the first year of Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty (1723), is its representative.

In earth building architecture, round and square buildings are usually built separately, but in some places due to historical reasons, earth building groups that combine round and square buildings have also been formed. The Huang family in Tianluokeng, Shuyang Township, Nanjing County, built a combination of five integrated round and square earth buildings over hundreds of years. Viewed from the air, a square building dominates the center and four round buildings surround the four corners. It looks like a huge plum blossom in full bloom, dotted on the green field, well-proportioned and beautiful. When the building complex was first built, there was only one square building. The ancestors of the Huang family named the building "Hechang Building". Later, as the population grew, four round earth buildings were built around the square building, from the east, west and south. "Hechang Tower" is guarded in the four directions of , , and north, making it look like a mountain village and a castle. The breathtaking grand idea makes people admire and admire it! In addition, there is also a round tower in Gaobei Village, Yongding Ancient Bamboo Township. Mainly, a group of earth buildings built in a mixed manner with square and round buildings. This ingenious idea and unique combination have won praise from architectural experts at home and abroad.

The ground floor of a round or square building is used as a kitchen and dining room, and in some cases it is also used as a cattle pen or pigsty. There are no windows on the ground floor to the outside world. The second floor is a utility room for storing grains and farm tools, and there are few windows to the outside. The third floor and above are bedrooms. The rooms upstairs and downstairs, as well as each single room, are all the same size, generally around 10m2. They are small and can only accommodate a bed, a cupboard and a table, reflecting the Hakka family's habit of not focusing on bedrooms and using the living room as the main activity space. The corridors in most earth buildings are open corridors, which are used by everyone. The doors and windows of each room open to the corridor. There are also some earth buildings that are divided into Bagua-style units or each room from the first floor to the top floor is an independent unit. Families are connected up and down by stairs. The "Zhencheng Building" in Hukeng Township, Yongding, is divided into 8 groups of bedrooms in the shape of a trigram on the outer circle, with 6 rooms in each unit, 48 rooms on each floor, and a total of 192 rooms on the 4th floor. Each unit is separated by a firewall and connected by an arch, and each unit has a bathroom downstairs.

In the Hakka residential areas of western and southwestern Fujian, there is also a kind of earth building house that is very different from the round and square earth buildings, commonly known as "Wufeng Building" (Nanjing people call it "Big House Building"). This is A kind of mansion-style earth building residence. The five phoenixes are originally the meaning of the five elements extended by the five directions (east, west, south, north, and center) and the five colors. The famous house with five phoenixes represents the corresponding meaning of the four directions and the center. It resembles an ancient palace in the Central Plains and is also similar to the Forbidden City in Beijing. Highlight the central axis center, and on the basis of plane development, pay attention to the balance and symmetry of the left and right, the order of the front and rear heights, and the neat and orderly layout. The most common Wufeng Tower is the three-chamber and two-horizontal style. There are also three halls and one horizontal, four-horizontal, six-horizontal, and other forms. The architectural contents of a three-hall and three-horizontal Wufeng building include: fish pond, side hall, back room, heping, lower hall, middle hall, back hall, and two side rooms. In terms of shape design, the hall and patio have a unique configuration. The hall is open, facing the patio and connected to the patio. The edge of the hall is the edge of the patio. The two form an inseparable whole, which is a very clever combination of space matching and communication and coordination. function. A five-phoenix building with three halls and two horizontal halls has 5 patios and 9 halls. There are three patios and three halls on the central axis. There are patios and open halls on the central axis. You can see the bottom from the door. There is a patio between the two horizontal rooms and the central axis. There are small entrance hall, middle hall and side entrance hall respectively. The corridor inside the building is a cloister that connects all parts of the building and every room. There are three patios on the central axis of the building, and ground sheds can be erected on the patios of the two horizontal houses. There is ample room for red and white ceremonial activities, which is very convenient. Wufeng Building usually has about 30 rooms, as well as several kitchens and warehouses, and can accommodate more than ten households and hundreds of people. The larger one has more than 60 rooms and can accommodate more than 200 people. The Wufeng Tower emphasizes decorative art, with carved beams and painted buildings, and is very exquisite. It is the most "luxurious" among all types of earth buildings. The beauty of its color and shape is widely praised by experts. Representative works of Wufeng Tower include the "Da Fu Di" in Fuling Village, Gaopi Township, Yongding, the "Fuyu Tower" in Hongkeng Village, Hukeng Township, and the "Yijing Tower" in Shangyang Village, etc.

One of the most distinctive features of earth buildings is their long construction period, which generally takes two or three years to complete. For larger ones, it may even take decades and generations of craftsmen’s hard work. The wood used must be 300 to 500 cubic meters. Because the earth walls are thick at the bottom and narrow at the top, they are solid and strong. They have good "three defenses" (windproof, waterproof, and earthquake proof). Some are also fireproof (three-ring earth walls are three fire sealing walls), especially their extraordinary earthquake resistance. It is amazing to see that almost all earth buildings have been tested by earthquakes of varying degrees and have survived unharmed. For example, the "Huanji Tower" in Hukeng Township, Yongding, built in 1693 AD, has experienced several earthquakes in the past 300 years. The big earthquake on the sixth day of the fourth lunar month in 1918 only cracked between the 3rd and 4th floors on the upper right side of the main entrance. A 50-centimeter-wide crack is 1.2 meters thick at the bottom of the round building wall structure. When it extends upward, it is slightly inclined inward and has a trapezoidal shape with strong centripetal force. Over the past 70 years, it has miraculously healed naturally, leaving only a crack one to two centimeters wide. In recent years, in order to avoid the inconvenience of people entering and exiting through one door, people have opened another small door in the "Fuxin Building" with the most "experience" in Yongding. They invited stonemasons to spend a lot of effort to dig with steel chisels for several days. Opened, the toughness of this three-piece earth wall can be seen from this. Another characteristic of earth building architecture is that the structure is extremely standardized and the rooms are of the same size. Most earth buildings have only one door for entry and exit, and there is a patio inside the building, which can store food for more than half a year. It is like a strong castle and is easy to prevent theft and banditry (in the old days, the Hakka people often suffered from bandits, so they built tall earth walls to prevent accidents. ). Because the walls are taller and thicker, they can not only prevent moisture and keep warm, but also insulate and cool down, which has many advantages. When the Hakka people built earthen buildings, they built the chimneys into the earthen walls to protect the kitchen from black smoke pollution and make it very clean.

The construction of earth buildings is also a manifestation of the old Hakka people's belief in Feng Shui. According to superstition, there is a "road evil" on the road, a "stream evil" on the stream, and a "concave evil" at the exit. When building a square building, they thought that one corner would encounter "evil spirits", so they carved the words "Taishan Shigandang" on the corner stone to ward off evil spirits, or nailed wooden boards with gossip and characters on the corner of the building. , used to "control evil spirits". Round buildings have no corners, and it is said that "evil spirits" can slip away. Therefore, in order to avoid "evil spirits", most earth buildings after the Qing Dynasty were round. Generally speaking, it is obvious that the construction of earth buildings should be practical.

Tulou are not only distinctive in architectural style, but the names of most of them also have meaningful meanings. Yongding earth buildings may be named after their orientation, such as "Dongsheng Building" which faces east and west, which means the rising sun rises from the east; or they may be named after their owners, such as "Zhenfu Building", which was built solely by Su Zhenfu; or they may be named in memory of their ancestors. For example, the "Qingfu Tower", "Fuyu Tower", "Zhencheng Tower" and "Qingcheng Tower" built by the descendants of Lin Fucheng in Yongding are always inseparable from the words "Fu" and "Cheng"; or they are named after the natural environment. For example, "Wangfeng Tower" is named because it faces the Bijia Mountain Peak, and "Huanxing Tower" is named because it is surrounded by water on three sides and is shaped like a round building. Or it is named for blessings, such as "Songzhu Tower" and "Fifty Building" respectively take the meaning of "green bamboos and luxuriant pines" and "five winds and ten rains are auspicious"; or they are named to encourage future generations, such as "Jingxun Building" and "Chengqi Building"; or to start a business. For example, "Fuqiao Building" was built by Jiang's overseas Chinese, which means the lucky house of overseas Chinese; "Qunxing Building" was built because everyone raised funds, and it means that the group lives in prosperity; or it is named with a pun of praise or derogation, "Ru Sheng" "Lou", sitting east and facing west, is likened to the rising sun. Later generations also joked that it was as small as a meter rising.

As an architectural form that Fujian Hakkas are proud of, earth buildings are a treasure among Fujian folk houses. At the same time, it also incorporates humanistic factors, which can be called the epitome of the tripartite combination of "heaven, earth, and man". Dozens of households and hundreds of people go to the first floor together, reflecting the Hakka family tradition of living together and living in harmony. Therefore, a history of earth buildings is a history of rural families. The descendants of Tulou can often tell the story of their family's origins without the need for a genealogy. In addition, local materials and the most common earth materials were used to build tall castles, turning the ordinary into magic and reflecting the Hakkas' ingenious creation in the process of conquering nature.

After the 1960s, the construction of traditional earth buildings has basically stopped. Today, there are hundreds of earth buildings of various shapes preserved in western and southern Fujian. Among them, Yongding County and Nanjing County have the largest number, each with There are more than 100 large and small earth buildings. In Yongding, there are many Tulou squirrels in a few towns such as Hukeng and Guzhu. There are 54 in Hukeng Township alone; in Nanjing, they are mostly found in Shuyang, Meilin and other towns. Most of the earth buildings are well preserved and still inhabited. Mixed with ordinary residential buildings, the huge earth buildings stand out from the crowd and are particularly eye-catching. The "Chengqi Building" in Gaobei Village, Guzhu Township, Yongding County has frequently appeared in movies and TV shows. It has also been included in the "Chinese Dictionary of Scenic Places" and has become one of China's "Residences" stamps. With its unique round building specimen, it has made the reputation of "Yongding Earth Building" spread like wildfire and has become synonymous with Fujian Hakka Earth Building.