The Dialolou towers and villages in Kaiping are testimonies to the fusion of Chinese and Western architectural styles and decorative forms. They originated from the influence of Chinese emigrants who, in the 19th and 20th centuries, incorporated European and American style elements into traditional garden architecture for the construction of tower houses in their homeland. The villages in Kaiping, featuring a total of 1800 tower houses originally used for defense against bandits, document the flourishing local architecture in Guangdong Province during the Ming period.
