What are the characteristics of Fujian folk houses?

The architectural features and local natural environment of Fujian folk houses are as follows.

First, the characteristics of Fujian residential buildings

Fujian's traditional folk houses include the traditional architectural forms of the Central Plains, such as Sanhe Courtyard and Siheyuan, as well as terraced houses, earth buildings and earthen castles with local characteristics. However, no matter how the form and style of folk houses evolve, they still maintain the same characteristics of traditional Han folk houses, such as symmetry of central axis, courtyard combination, wood bearing system and sloping roof.

The local nature of Fujian traditional architecture is not only reflected in the coincidence of spatial layout and local folk customs, but also in the clever use of local materials such as soil, wood and stone. Fujian is a mountainous area with red soil and yellow soil, and it is an ideal building material.

Except for some houses in coastal areas that use stone walls because of lack of good clay, most traditional houses in Fujian adopt civil structures. Using rammed earth wall as load-bearing structure to build square and round earth buildings with a diameter of nearly 100 meters and a height of 10 meters is a must in Fujian. In 2008, Fujian Tulou was included in the World Cultural Heritage List. The combination of local materials and customs, craftsman system, building technology and decoration technology has formed Fujian's unique decorative arts such as wood carving, stone carving and brick carving.

Second, the local natural environment in Fujian

The topographical features of Fujian are high in northwest and low in southeast. The mountainous and hilly areas in Fujian Province account for about 90% of the national territory. The two mountain belts in western Fujian and central Fujian are generally balanced. The mountainous area in western Fujian is mainly Wuyi Mountain, which obliquely passes through Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, with a length of about 530 kilometers and an average elevation of 1 km.

The climate in Fujian varies greatly, belonging to subtropical monsoon climate, with warm winter and hot summer. The frost-free period in the inland is about 300 days, and the southeast coast of Fujian is about 340 days. It can be harvested three times a year, which is suitable for the growth of high-temperature crops and subtropical plants such as Gansu.