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Explore the region
About Dawan Hakka Walled Village
The founder of the settlement, Zeng Chuanzhou, was born in Sanyanghu Village in what is now Pingshan and moved to this site to establish the compound. Work began in the middle of the Qianlong reign, around 1763, and the complex was finished by 1791. The main building covers roughly 15,000 square metres and is laid out around a clan ancestral hall, with attics, gate towers, enclosing walls, wells, courtyards, dwellings, an inner enclosure range and a stone archway. Shenzhen's municipal government describes it as one of the largest square-plan Hakka walled villages in China by ground area and the largest mid-Qing Hakka enclosure in the city.
The plan is symmetrical about a central axis and forms a multi-layered composite structure, likened by the city's account to a castle-like square gaming block. There are two rings of wall, inner and outer, and three-storey corner towers stand at the four corners of each. Water features are part of the design rather than incidental: a crescent pond lies in front of the entrance, a fish pond to the left, and an old water-control work known as the Shadunbei adjoins the rear. The site was listed as a Shenzhen municipal key cultural relic protection unit in 1984 and raised to Guangdong provincial protection in July 2002.
What to look for
- The double ring of enclosing walls, with a three-storey tower at each of the four corners of both the inner and the outer wall
- The central ancestral hall of the Zeng lineage, around which the courtyards and dwellings are organised
- The crescent pond in front of the main gate and the fish pond on the left-hand side of the compound
- The stone archway among the gate towers, attics, wells and courtyards that make up the complex
- The Shadunbei, an old water-control structure adjoining the rear of the settlement
Location & getting there
Getting to Dawan Hakka Walled Village
Check which interiors and courtyards are accessible. Active places of worship and protected monuments may have different visitor rules.
- Search for 大万世居 with 深圳市 and 坪山区.
Find Dawan Hakka Walled Village
大万世居 · 坪山区
No reliable map pin yet: search by the Chinese name.
Sources & visit information
The linked sources support the identity and background described in this introduction. Opening hours, admission, activity availability and exact arrival arrangements have not been comprehensively checked. Confirm current visitor information with the venue; the original catalogue locality and editorial review flag are retained.