Yuchanglou, Heritage earthen building in Xiabanliao, China

Yuchanglou is a circular earthen tulou in Xiaban Village, Shuyang Town, Nanjing County, Fujian. It measures 54 meters in diameter, covers 2,289 square meters, and rises five stories with 54 rooms per floor, 269 in total. Its outer wall is 1.8 meters thick at the base and at least 90 centimeters at the top. A circular ancestral hall stands in the central courtyard, and traces of a former one-story inner ring remain visible in the ground.

Yuchanglou was built in 1308, in the first year of the ZhiDa era of the Yuan Dynasty, in Xiaban Village, Shuyang Town, Nanjing County, Fujian. Five surname groups built it together, dividing the interior into five sections. Over time the other four moved away and sold their rooms to the Liu family, who have lived there for generations; the population is said to have peaked at over 300. It was listed as a Fujian provincial cultural relic in 2001.

The building was laid out in five trigram sections, one for each of the five founding surnames, and locals avoid calling it "east-collapsing west-leaning tower", preferring the auspicious "east-leaning west-slanting tower". A round ancestral hall stands in the central courtyard, and traces of a one-story inner ring demolished around 2003 remain visible in the paving.

Yuchanglou stands in Xiaban Village, Shuyang Town, Nanjing County, Zhangzhou, Fujian. The circular inner courtyard and the circular ancestral hall at its centre are reached through the ground-floor entrances; the foundations of the former one-storey inner ring, dismantled around 2003, are still visible in the courtyard floor. The building is a protected provincial heritage site, so visitors should keep to the corridors and courtyard.

The columns on the third and fourth floors lean clockwise, while those on the fifth floor lean counter-clockwise. Locals call it "Dongwai Xixie Lou" (east-leaning, west-slanting tower) and avoid the inauspicious "Dongdao Xiwai Lou". The ground-floor kitchens along the rear, mountain-facing half each have a well beside the stove, the only such convenient water supply among Fujian tulou.