Kaiping Diaolou

Kaiping Diaolou and Villages, the unique residential¹ and defensive² buildings in Guangdong's Kaiping, were inscribed³（题写，雕刻） on UNESCO's World Heritage List on June 28.

The cultural site nomination⁴（任命，提名） was approved by the ongoing⁵ 31st session of the World Heritage Committee, which convened⁶（召集，集合） June 23 in Christchurch New Zealand June 23.

Kaiping Diaolou and Villages feature the Diaolou, multi-storied defensive village houses in Kaiping, Guangdong Province, which display a complex fusion⁷（融合，融化） of Chinese and Western structural⁸ and decorative⁹（装饰的） forms. They reflect the significant role of émigré Kaiping people in the development of several countries in South Asia, Australasia, and North America, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the close links between overseas Kaiping and their ancestral homes.

The property inscribed consists of four groups of Diaolou, totaling some 1,800 tower houses in their village settings. They reflect the culmination¹⁰ of almost five centuries of tower-house building and the still strong links between Kaiping and the Chinese diaspora（离散的犹太人） .

These buildings take three forms: communal¹¹ towers built by several families and used as temporary refuge, of which 473 remain; residential towers built by individual rich families and used as fortified¹²（加强的） residences, of which 1,149 survive; and watch towers, the latest development, which account for 221 of the buildings. Built of stone, compressed（被压缩的，扁平的） earth, brick or concrete, these buildings represent a complex and confident fusion between Chinese and Western architectural styles. Retaining a harmonious¹³（和谐的） relationship with the surrounding agricultural landscape, the Diaolou testify to the final flowering of local building traditions that started in the Ming period (1368-1644) in response to local banditry（土匪，盗贼） .