The Most Beautiful Towns & Villages In Guangdong

With more than 800 years of history, Shawan Ancient Town, found on the outskirts of Guangzhou, evokes a feeling of nostalgia for what China used to be; from its narrow stone streets to its elegant seashell buildings, this town’s culture and beauty is a blast from the past worth visiting. It includes 100 ancestral halls and rows of traditional Chinese courtyard houses, while it’s also a place to experience some of China’s intangible cultural assets, including lion dances, Cantonese folk music and Piaose, a performance consisting of folk music, acrobatics, dancing and also magic.

Attracting tourists from all around the globe, this fairly new precise replica of an Austrian village is now a UNESCO heritage site. This famous Guangdong village, located in Huizhou, is so amazingly accurate that it is easy to forget that you’re not in Austria while there. It contains replicas of the original parish church and the town’s fountain among other monuments from the European town. It first opened in 2012 and the mayor of Hallstatt, Alexander Scheutz, even attended the ceremony, signing an agreement for cultural exchange on his arrival.

Known for its awe-inspiring fusion of both Chinese and Western architecture, Kaiping Diaolou was once a fortress and its surrounding buildings were used as residential homes. Now mostly abandoned, Kaiping Diaolou has been named a UNESCO world heritage site and is a popular Guangdong tourist attraction.

Located in a suburb of Shenzen, China, Dafen Oil Painting Village was founded in 1989 and still remains as the number one oil painting village in all of China. Tourists flock to this quaint Guangdong village for custom artwork and its eclectic vibe.

Another village located in Guangdong province, Xiaozhou Village brings artists from all over the world to its small, stone streets and oyster shell hutongs. Xiaozhou Village makes for a perfect, quiet getaway from bustling city life.