diaolou

Diaolou () are fortified multi-storey watchtowers in rural villages, generally made of reinforced concrete. These towers are located mainly in Kaiping, Guangdong province, China. In 2007, UNESCO designated the Kaiping Diaolou and Villages () a World Heritage Site, which covers four separate Kaiping village areas: Sanmenli (), Zilicun (), Jinjiangli (), and Majianglong village cluster (). These areas demonstrate a unique fusion of 19th- and 20th-century Chinese and Western architectural styles.

==History== Diaolou structures were built from the time of the Ming dynasty to the early 20th century, reaching a peak during the Warlord Era in the 1920s and 1930s, with the financial aid of overseas Chinese, when there were more than three thousand of these structures. Today, approximately 1,800 diaolou remain standing, and mostly abandoned, in the village countryside of Kaiping. They can also occasionally be found in several other areas of Guangdong, such as Shenzhen and Dongguan.