How old is Kaiping Diaolou?

Kaiping Diaolou, located in Kaiping City, Guangdong Province, is a special type of local building in China. It is a multi-storey tower building integrating defense, residence and Chinese and western architectural arts. According to the existing evidence, Kaiping Diaolou was produced at the latest in the late Ming Dynasty (16th century), and developed into a unique group architectural image expressing the history, social form and cultural tradition of overseas Chinese in China in the late19th century and the early 20th century. This kind of building complex is large in scale, diverse and unique in shape, and distributed in the rural areas of Kaiping City. Featuring houses combining Chinese and western styles, there are many styles such as ancient Greece, ancient Rome and Islam. Since the Ming Dynasty (1368- 1644), Kaiping, which is located between Xinhui, Taishan, Enping and Xinxing, has been a land of "four noes", where bandits are rampant and social security is chaotic. In addition, there are many rivers, and every typhoon and rainstorm, floods occur frequently, and local people are forced to build towers in the village to protect themselves. On June 25th, 20001year, Kaiping Diaolou, as an important historical relic and representative building in modern times, was approved by the State Council to be included in the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.