Peitian Ancient Village

About the village

Peitian is a historic Hakka village at the foot of Guanzhai Mountain in Liancheng county, Fujian, covering 13.4 square kilometres with around 400 households and 1,500 villagers. Its founding ancestor of the Wu surname, Wu Basilang, moved from Zhejiang to Peitian in 1344, the fourth year of the Zhizheng era of the Yuan dynasty, establishing a Hakka Wu lineage in western Fujian. The village preserves a large complex of Ming and Qing dynasty residences, including over 30 mansions, 21 ancestral halls and six schools and academies, many built in the "nine halls and eighteen wells" style, and it has been called the "No 1 village for residential houses in Fujian". Peitian today offers a rare window into the Hakka ideal of farming and studying, embodied in its academies, ancestral halls and carved mansions, and it holds 25 national and 28 provincial cultural relic protection units. Named a national historical and cultural village and the "folk Imperial Palace", it has become a popular destination where visitors can walk its 1,000 metre ancient street, experience Hakka customs and stay in village homestays. For the diaspora, it stands as a tangible record of how one Hakka clan's migration, scholarship and commerce shaped a community over nearly seven centuries.