Kaiping

Administratively, Kaiping City is under the jurisdiction of Jiangmen. It was set up as a city in 1993.

Kaiping City is located 140 km away from Guangzhou, in the southwestern part of the Pearl River Delta. Kaiping consists of three port cities: Changsha, Xinchang, and Dihai.

The diaolou (碉樓) are fortified multi-storey towers, which were constructed in the Kaiping area from the early Qing Dynasty, reaching a peak in the 1920s and 1930s, when there were more than three thousand of these structures. Today, approximately 1,800 diaolou are still standing. The diaolou served two purposes: housing and protecting against forays by bandits.

Kaiping has traditionally been a region of major emigration abroad, and a melting pot of ideas and trends brought back by overseas Chinese made good. As a consequence, several watchtowers incorporate architectural features from China and the West.

Examples include:

• Ruishi Diaolou, located behind Jinjiangli Village, Lianggang Township. Constructed in 1921, it has nine floors and is the highest diaolou at Kaiping. It features a Byzantine style roof and a Roman dome.
• The diaolou cluster spread across the three villages of Anhe li, He'an li and Yong'an li has 15 diaolou and houses
• Li Garden, in Beiyi Xiang, was constructed in 1936 by Mr. Xie Weili, a Chinese emigrant to the United States.
• Fangshi Denglou - Built in 1920 after contributions from villagers, this denglou is five storeys high. It is referred to as the "Light Tower" because it had an enormous searchlight as bright as the beam of a lighthouse.
• Bianchouzhu Lou (The Leaning Tower), located in Nanxing Village was constructed in 1903. It has seven floors.

Kaiping has been twinned with Mesa, Arizona, United States, since October 18, 1993.

• Kaiping government website
• Information about the diaolou
• A personal family genealogy with origins in Kaiping