Located at Xizhuang Township, Jianshui County, Honghe Hani & Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southern Yunnan Province, Tuanshan Village is the only intact famous cultural village of the Qing Dynasty existed currently which was ever the habitation of the Yi ethnic minority in history.
In Tuanshan Village, there are residential complexes built 600 years ago which have well reserved the characteristics and social and humanistic environment of the Southern Yunnan villages in the 19th century and 26 best preserved traditional folk houses and ancient buildings of the late Qing Dynasty, for which the village is reputed as "Loulan Ancient City in Yunnan".
The extant old architectures consist of traditional Han Chinese courtyard built of grey bricks, tuzhangfang (earth-rammed house) of Yi ethnic group and the tuzhangfang with tile eaves of combined Han and Yi style. The building complex includes those courtyard houses of one hall, two halls and three halls as well as those of crisscross yards, covering the traditional residential forms of "four-side courtyard house with five raise headings", "three-side courtyard house with a screen wall facing the gate" and "horse running building" (Square courtyard with two-layer buildings on four sides in which the corridors are connecting with each other so that "the horse can run on the corridor") in Yunnan. All the houses stand facing east and exposed to the sun. Walking down the old flagstone paved road of the village, you would be aware of the 19th-century farming culture in southern Yunan Province as well as the supplemented humanistic culture which are reflected in various aspects from the architecture, sculpture, painting to calligraphy, couplets, poems and local customs.
As the architectures were built along the mountains at high ground by sophisticated materials in elaborate workmanship, and there have been residents living there from generation to generation, Tuanshan Village is able to be preserved intact up to the present. Now, the small village has drawn the attention of the whole world thanks to its unique building complexes.
