Tourists visit Tulous in Yongding, China's Fujian

Tourists visit Tulou in Yongding County, southeast China's Fujian Province, Sept. 4, 2012. Fujian Tulou is a type of Chinese rural dwellings of the Hakka and Minnan people in the mountainous areas in Fujian Province. The layout of Fujian Tulou followed the Chinese dwelling tradition of "closed outside, open inside" concept: an enclosure wall with living quarters around the peripheral and a common courtyard at the center. A Tulou is usually a large, enclosed and fortified earth building, most commonly rectangular or circular in configuration, with very thick load-bearing rammed earth walls between three and five stories high and housing up to 100 families. A total of 46 Fujian Tulou sites were inscribed in 2008 by UNESCO as World Heritage Site. The Tulou tourism zone received about 2.3 million visitors from January to July this year.[Photo/Xinhua]