How many world cultural heritages are there in Guangdong?

In Guangdong, there is only one world cultural heritage, namely Kaiping Diaolou and Village. On June 28th, 2007, at the 3 1 World Cultural Heritage Conference held in Christchurch, New Zealand, Kaiping Diaolou and its villages successfully passed the voting and were officially listed in the World Heritage List, becoming the 34th World Heritage Site in China and the first in Guangdong Province.

I. Introduction

Kaiping Diaolou is a unique architectural community that combines Chinese and Western architectural styles with the local natural landscape of China. Its history can be traced back to the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. In the 1920s and 1930s, with a large number of overseas Chinese returning to their hometowns to buy houses, there was an unprecedented heyday of Kaiping Diaolou. At the peak, there were more than 3,000 diaolou, and there are still 1833 diaolou well preserved and scattered in more than 3,000 villages.

Kaiping Diaolou Village is not only a world cultural heritage, but also a national key cultural relics protection unit. It is an outstanding representative of Guangdong cultural heritage, an important monument of overseas Chinese culture and immigrant culture in China, and a special building built by a large number of overseas Chinese bridges at the end of 19 to improve the living conditions of their families and prevent bandits. It has obvious brand of the times. It not only inherits the ancient wisdom of China's architecture, but also brings back architectural art from all over the world due to the return of overseas Chinese, including the ancient Roman-style coupon arch, the colonnade of ancient Greek art, the Baroque-style mountain flowers, the dome of Islamic schools, etc ... It is large-scale, diverse and unique in shape, and is spread all over Kaiping villages.

Among the many carved buildings in Kaiping, the towers in Gigi Lai Village are outstanding representatives. It consists of Anheli (commonly known as Ploughhead Mouth), Heanli (commonly known as Xincun) and Yong 'anli (commonly known as Huangniling). In the 17th year of Qing Daoguang (A.D. 1837), the village was opened, which was named after its topography like plowshares. There are now 15 well-preserved watchtowers here, which have different styles, exquisite shapes and rich connotations, and are the outstanding ones in the prosperous period of Kaiping watchtowers.

Second, value.

(1) Kaiping Diaolou is an important historical and cultural landscape that actively accepts foreign cultures during the social transformation period in China. The era of large-scale construction of Kaiping Diaolou is a transitional stage from traditional society to modern society in China, and the impact of foreign culture on traditional culture is different. Western-style buildings in some coastal cities along the Yangtze River in China are mainly imported passively, while the watchtowers around Kaiping are the products of China rural people's active acceptance of western architectural art and their integration with local architectural art, which fully reflects their self-confidence, openness and tolerance in the face of foreign advanced culture. They put what they saw and heard, together with their aesthetic taste, into the watchtower. Different places of residence and different aesthetics have created various styles of Kaiping Diaolou.

Architecture belongs to the art category. When people in the hometown of overseas Chinese built these thousands of towers, they consciously or unconsciously created a unique cultural landscape with special historical and cultural value.

(2) Kaiping Diaolou is a concentrated exhibition and outstanding representative of foreign architectural art transplanted to rural areas in China. In the building of Kaiping Diaolou, foreign architectural arts of different styles and schools in different periods are gathered. The colonnade in ancient Greece, the columns, arches and domes in ancient Rome, the Gothic pointed arches and Islamic arches in medieval Europe, the components of European castles, the arcades in Portuguese architecture, and the European Baroque architecture in the Renaissance and17th century can be seen everywhere in Kaiping.

These architectural elements with different styles, schools and religions show great inclusiveness in Kaiping. They converge in a harmonious place, forming a new architectural type with strong comprehensiveness and showing unique artistic charm. Many styles and types of foreign architectural art like this are rooted in rural areas of China and have been well preserved. Kaiping Diaolou is a very special carrier and very precious. It has become a unique landscape in China local architecture, and it is a pioneering work.

(3) Kaiping Diaolou is the most typical representative of the cultural characteristics of overseas Chinese in China. Overseas Chinese are disseminators of culture. The blending and collision of Chinese and foreign cultures is the inevitable product of its development, and the cultural conflict it brings will inevitably touch all aspects and classes of China's traditional society, which is also the same law of the world's immigrant culture.

This kind of cultural conflict and blending is vividly displayed in Kaiping. It still maintains its own tradition. There are few local buildings in rural areas where Chinese and western architectural cultures are integrated, mainly in counties and towns, but Kaiping can be seen everywhere, and you can see traces of the integration of Chinese and foreign cultures whenever you walk to a watchtower and residential building. Therefore, it can be said that the Kaiping Diaolou very prominently embodies the profundity and extensiveness of overseas Chinese culture in China.

Kaiping Diaolou is a pioneer of the world's advanced building technology being widely introduced into rural residential buildings in China. In modern China, foreign building materials and technologies have been widely used in urban architecture. As a local building, Kaiping Diaolou also uses a lot of imported materials such as cement, wood, steel bars and glass. The reinforced concrete structure has changed the traditional building technology, created conditions for giving full play to its functions, and paid attention to the changes in form and aesthetic feeling.

Kaiping is the hometown of overseas Chinese and architecture. At the beginning of the 20th century, a large number of people at home and abroad were engaged in the construction industry, with more than 80,000 construction employees in more than 50 construction companies. Overseas Chinese and craftsmen in Kaiping mastered western building components and art earlier, and they were importers of advanced western building materials and technologies. Because of them, Kaiping Diaolou has made outstanding contributions to enriching the connotation of local architecture in China.

(5) Kaiping Diaolou embodies the traditional environmental awareness and geomantic concept of overseas Chinese people. It is the perfect combination of planning, architecture, natural environment and humanistic ideas. This single building, which is mainly distributed behind the village, has formed a deep-rooted, peaceful, rich and culturally prosperous harmonious environment with the surrounding bamboo forest, the pond in front of the village and the banyan tree at the entrance of the village. The combination of tower and residential buildings, like the backer of the whole village in plain area, meets the psychological needs of villagers for safety protection. The transition from low to high from folk houses to watchtowers expresses the villagers' desire to "rise step by step". Kaiping Diaolou is an important means for overseas Chinese to create a harmonious living environment.

In addition to the world cultural heritage, Guangdong also has a world natural heritage, namely, China's Hongshi Park-Danxia Mountain. A brief introduction of China Hongshi Park-Danxia Mountain is as follows:

1. Danxia Mountain (? China Hongshi Park is located in Renhua County, Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province. With a total area of 292 square kilometers, it is the largest scenic spot in Guangdong Province, a scenic spot dominated by Danxia landform and a world natural heritage site. ?

2. Danxia Mountain is a place named after Danxia Landform in the world. It is composed of more than 680 pieces of red gravel rocks, with a flat top, steep body and gentle feet, featuring Chibi. According to the research of geologists, more than 1200 Danxia landforms have been discovered in the world. These landforms are the most typical, complete in types and rich in forms. Danxia mountain area was once a large inland basin. Influenced by Himalayan orogeny, the crust rose and gradually eroded, forming today's Danxia landform. Danxia Mountain has become the research base of Danxia landform in China and even the world, and it is also the base of popular science education and teaching practice. ?

3. Since the development of 1988, Danxia Mountain has been listed as five national brands of national scenic spots, national nature reserves, national geological parks, national AAAA scenic spots and national AAAAAA scenic spots. In February 2004, it was approved by UNESCO as the first batch of world geoparks.