Banma Tibetan Tower Villages 班玛藏族碉楼村寨

About Banma Tibetan Tower Villages

The county's Tibetan towers are traditionally traced back 800 years and are divided into three construction types — stone, timber and mixed. Provincial reporting places them mainly in some villages of Dengta (灯塔乡), Ya'ertang (亚尔堂乡) and Jiangritang (江日堂乡) townships, with the towers of Banqian Village the most concentrated at close to a hundred, most of them more than three hundred years old. A 2014 China News Service report gives the same age range and adds that the villages holding them in Dengta Township include Banqian, Kepei (科培) and Gerize (格日则), among others.

A standard tower is about three storeys and close to ten metres high, faced with stone slabs of varying size, with battered walls and flat roofs; the stone towers are built of slabs fitted in a mortise-and-tenon-like structure that interlocks large and small pieces in crossing rows. The ground floor pens livestock and stores goods, the second floor is the living area, and the third is a partly open platform that earlier served for keeping watch and shooting. A single unrailed log ladder links the floors and was made removable: the source attributes that device to tribal conflict a century ago, when pulling the ladder away kept an intruder out. Towers were sited high, out of the wind and facing the sun, to spare scarce arable land on the valley's steep slopes. Building one took at least three years, roughly a year per storey, using timber and stone from the surrounding land.

The Banma tower group was included in 2014 in the sixth batch of China's historic and cultural towns and villages, the first batch of Qinghai's characteristic landscape tourism towns and villages, and the third batch of China's traditional villages; Banqian Village itself was rated a Chinese historic and cultural village in 2014 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Cultural Heritage Administration. In 2011 the Banma tower-building technique (藏族碉楼营造技艺) entered China's national intangible cultural heritage list. The source also names Wangrou Village (王柔村) in Ya'ertang Township, which it says was named in 2019 by the National Ethnic Affairs Commission in the third batch of China's minority-characteristic villages. The catalogue label is a collective name for these tower villages rather than one walled site, and the sources describe no single entrance covering them.

What to look for

• The tower cluster of Banqian Village (班前村), close to a hundred towers, most over three hundred years old, whose stone walls are laid in crossing rows of interlocking slabs.
• A single-log ladder (独木梯) inside a tower, the removable link between the ground floor's livestock pen and the living floor above.
• The third-floor platform, left partly open and used in the past for keeping watch and for shooting.
• The village plaque in Banqian reading Chinese Traditional Village — Banqian Village (中国传统村落——班前村).
• Wangrou Village (王柔村) in Ya'ertang Township, which the provincial report says was named in 2019 in the third batch of China's minority-characteristic villages.

Location & getting there

Getting to Banma Tibetan Tower Villages

Identify the main visitor approach and any separately managed houses, museums or performances. Ask before entering residential spaces or photographing residents.

• Search for 班玛藏族碉楼村寨 with 果洛藏族自治州 and 班玛县.