‘With four stories forming four concentric circles, our building has over 400 rooms. Sleeping in one room per night, you can stay here for over a year. Like a mushroom or a mysterious earthen castle, the building accommodates 600 people.”
These are lines in a promotional video presenting the Chengqi Building, a tulou or earthen house built in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in Yongding County, Longyan, Fujian Province. As the tallest and oldest existing circular building in the province, locals refer to it as the “King of Tulous.”
In its heyday, the building housed more than 600 people and protected them from invasion. Nestled in the mountains, its residents use the limited