Yuchang Earth Tower
Yuchang Earth Building is double-ring five-line structure built in the middle of the Yuan Dynasty (1308-1338) by five clans, the Liu, Luo, Zhang, Tang and Fan. There are 270 rooms in the 18 meter high building, and there are still 21 families living inside.
Yuchanglou has been nicknamed the "zigzag building", because the vertical wooden post structure is not straight and perpendicular, but zigzags left and right(some even at 15 degree angle). It was built that way due to an error measuring the building materials. But in spite of this apparent infirmity, this tall tulou withstood 700 years of natural elements and social turmoil. Yuchanglou's outer ring is 36 m in diameter and boasts five storeys, with 50 rooms on each floor.
Each of the 25 kitchens on the ground floor at the back half of the circle has a private water well beside its stove. This is the only tulou in all Fujian with such convenient water supply.
There was a one storey inner-ring house surrounding the ancestral hall as late as 2003. This part of the building stood nearly 700 years intact until, unfortunately, it was dismantled after 2003.
