The Ancient Watchtowers of Danba

The Ancient Watchtowers of Danba

The Ancient Watchtowers of Danba are a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The ancient watchtowers are outstanding architectural achievements of the ancestors of the Tibetan people in the Jiarong region, boasting a long and splendid history. Danba County is known as the "Country of a Thousand Watchtowers"

and boasts countless ancient watchtower structures standing on both sides of the Greater and Lesser Jinsha Rivers and the upper reaches of the Dadu River, in villages, along ridges, and at strategic passes. According to records, at their peak, there were no fewer than 3,000 watchtowers in Danba, with a single large village having over a hundred. Imagine the breathtaking sight of densely packed towers lining the steep river valleys back then.

According to incomplete statistics, only 166 ancient watchtowers remain in the county today, mainly distributed in Suopo, Pubuge, and Zhonglu. Among them, there are 84 in Suopo, 29 in Pubuge, 21 in Zhonglu, and the remaining 32 scattered across other townships. The oldest surviving watchtowers date back to the Tang Dynasty, while the latest were built during the Qing Dynasty’s suppression of the Greater and Lesser Jinsha regions. With a history spanning thousands of years, these watchtowers have withstood wars, weathering, and earthquakes, yet many still stand firmly. Some have leaned over time but remain upright, while others are curved like bows, forming unique sights. Their architectural artistry is exquisitely superb, leaving observers in awe.

The watchtowers were built with layered stone and mud, featuring straight edges and

smooth walls. They are wider at the base and narrower at the top, with the façade tapering inward as the height increases. Generally, the watchtowers are over 20 meters tall, with the tallest reaching up to 50 meters. They contain ten

to over twenty floors, with each floor accommodating around ten people, and each tower housing 100 to over 200 people. These ancient watchtowers come in various architectural forms. In terms of shape, they can be categorized into four-cornered, five-cornered, six-cornered, eight-cornered, and even thirteen-cornered towers, though the four-cornered type is the most common.

Functionally, they are classified as residential watchtowers, boundary watchtowers, village watchtowers, feng shui watchtowers, signal watchtowers, official fortress watchtowers, military defense watchtowers, and communication-warning watchtowers. During the Qing Dynasty's Qianlong era, in the wars over the Greater and Lesser Jinsha regions, the Qing army found it difficult to conquer the area due to the dense presence of local watchtowers. As a result, they took a group of captives and craftsmen to Beijing’s Fragrant Hills to build similar watchtowers for research and attack tactic drills.

Therefore, some of these stone-built ancient watchtowers still exist in Beijing’s Fragrant Hills today, and the captives and craftsmen eventually settled there. Their descendants still retain certain features of Jiarong Tibetan residential architecture in their houses. The ancient watchtowers are a typical representation of the exceptional stone masonry skills of the ancestors of the Jiarong Tibetans. Historical scholars, based on the clustered towers, once concluded that "the watchtower clusters may have been the ancient capital of the Jialiang." To this day, many mysteries about the ancient watchtowers remain uncovered, waiting for further investigation and research.

Protected Area: Core Protected Area: The ancient watchtower clusters located in Zhonglu and Suopo. General Protected Area: Scattered ancient watchtowers in the other 12 townships and Zhanggu Town.

Construction Control Zone: A 50-meter buffer zone extending beyond the protected area.

Further Reading:

· Sixth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units