Kaiping

Kaiping
—  County-level city  —
Chinese transcription(s)
- Traditional	開平
- Simplified	开平
- Pinyin	Kāipíng
Street in Chikan Town
Location in Guangdong
Kaiping Location in China
Coordinates: 22°22′11″N 112°41′4″E / 22.36972°N 112.68444°E / 22.36972; 112.68444
Country	China
Province	Guangdong
Prefecture	Jiangmen
County seat	Changsha (长沙街道)
Area
- Total	1,659 km2 (640.5 sq mi)
Population (2003)
- Total	680,000
- Density	409.9/km2 (1,061.6/sq mi)
Time zone	China Standard (UTC+8)
Postal code	529312
Area code(s)	0750
Website	http://www.kaiping.gov.cn/

Kaiping (simplified Chinese: 开平; traditional Chinese: 開平; pinyin: Kāipíng; Yale Cantonese: Hoi1 Ping4; Kaiping dialect (Yale Romanization): Hoi3 Pen6) or Hoi Ping is a county-level city in Guangdong Province, southern China. It has a population of 680,000 as of 2003 and an area of 1,659 km².^[1] The locals speak a variation of the Taishan dialect.

Administration

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

Geography

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.

Sights

Ruishi Diaolou

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. The Kaiping diaolou and villages were added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2007.

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.
• The "Southern Diaolou" located on the riverbank, which was known for seven local soldiers by the surname 司徒 who defended it from the Japanese.

Miscellaneous

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

Kaiping was a major source of emigrants at the turn of the last century. As a result, a large number of early Chinese Canadian and Chinese American communities had people who originated from Kaiping and its neighbouring counties of Taishan, Enping and Xinhui. It is said that there are more Kaipingnese people living abroad today than there are Kaipingnese in Kaiping.

In 1973, various people originated from Kaiping (Hoi Ping) started Hoi Ping Chamber of Commerce Secondary School in Hong Kong.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kaiping

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