7,000-year history of China stilted houses celebrates human ingenuity, offers insights

Elevated homes have been part of Chinese culture since earliest days, showcasing how intercultural interaction fuelled technology development

With sturdy wooden columns supporting a wide walkway that leads into a living space, stilted houses – known as ganlan in Chinese – represent a quintessential element of East Asian architectural heritage, boasting a remarkable history that spans 7,000 years.

A day trip to Tai O, a historic fishing village on Lantau Island in Hong Kong, fully immerses visitors in the enchanting aesthetics of ganlan, making the village a premier destination for both locals and tourists.

“In most Chinese regions comprising ancient human civilisations, traces of ganlan are evident, reflecting a certain historical inevitability in its origin,” wrote the authors, Min Tianyi and Zhang Tong, from Southeast University in Nanjing, in east China’s Jiangsu province.

Stilted houses often occupy densely populated areas, fostering a picturesque community where residents are motivated to collaborate and learn from one another, ultimately enhancing communal prosperity.

This cultural synergy encouraged interethnic exchanges and, over time, the migration of technologies, according to a recent study published in Nature.

“Inter-ethnic interaction, particularly influenced by Han culture, is a key driving force in the evolution of ganlan types, collectively shaping its ‘west-to-east’ directional evolution pattern,” the authors stated.