Kaiping Village Planning Thoughts during the Late Qing-Dynasty and the Republican Period (1900 -1949)

Abstract:

Located in mid-southern part of Guangdong Province and southwest of the Pearl River Delta, Kaiping County stretches over an area of 1,659 sq. km. It comprises more than 2,700 villages, with a total population of 0.68 million. There are also 0.75 million Kaiping people residing abroad in 67 countries and regions (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan). Kaiping people started to make a living abroad after the Opium War (1860), when China was forced to open their doors to the Western world. Most of them went overseas to North America, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Those people came back to their hometown area to build houses for their families during the later Qing Dynasty and the Republican Period (c.1900-1949). They combined new ideas with their traditional village planning principles when they established new villages. This article attempts to focus on local planning regulations and tries to explain how Western planning ideas were brought back and used in local village planning.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 671-674)
• Pages: 2208-2213
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.671-674.2208
• Online since: March 2013
• Authors: Jin Hua Tan Selia
• Keywords: Jian Cun Zhang Cheng, Overseas Chinese Thought, Planning Regulation, Village Planning

References

[1] Construction Regulations of Dongming Village, Tangkou, Xie clan, (1905).

[2] Planning , Consruction and Management of Kaiping Villages. Research on Kaiping Diaolou and Villages ZHANG, Guoxiong, (2006).

[3] Ibid.

[4] Letter from Xie Shengpan to Xie Weiwen, 1931. Stored in the Overseas Chinese Museum of Kaiping.

[5] Comb-shaped layout refers to a village comprising columns of houses with clean-cut lengthwise roads, looking like a comb when viewed as a whole. Reference: Lu Qi (2008) Guangdong Minju, (1st ed. ), China: China Building Industry Press, p.22.

[6] ibid, p.35.

[7] Housing Shares and Construction Regulations of Qinglin Tang, (1909).

[8] Cheng Jianjun. Kaiping Diaolou, chapter four, section four: early setting and layout of Jinjiangli Village. (2007).

[9] Housing Shares and Construction Regulations of Qinglin Tang, (1909).

[10] The Qionglin Village Regualtions was set up in 1908 by the Mei clansmen, very similar to the Qinglin Village of Kaipng but more detailed in terms of management.

[11] Interview to Xie Longhai, son of the owner of Huang Mansion in Genghua Village, Nov. 25, 2009. and the discussion among family members through mails.

[12] Xie Shengpan's letter to his families in Hong Kong, Feb 25, 1931. Stored in the Liyuan Museum, Kaiping.

[13] Rapoport, Amos, House Form and Culture, 1969. P46.