Welcome to my pages.


Yan'an Cave Dwellings - Yaodongs

China



Home


Hungary


Cardinal József Mindszenty


1956 Hungarian Revolution (My Story)
(My Eyewitness story of our Freedomfight
and Resistance against the Soviet Invasion)


50th Anniversary of our Freedomfight



My Travel and Photos Pages

Africa

America - North

America - Central

America - South

Asia

Australia

Oceania





My China pages directory

Beijing or Peking
Beijing Buses
Beijing - Forbidden City
Beijing - Prince Gong Palace
Beijing - Summer Palace
Great Wall of China
Guangzhou or Canton
Guangzhou Buses
Guangzhou trains
Hong Kong
Hong Kong Airport
Hong Kong Buses
Hong Kong - Lantau Island
Kashgar or Kashi
Kashgar Buses
Kashgar Sunday Market
Macau
Ming Dynasty Tombs
Peking Man's Caves/Zhoukoudian
Shanghai
Shanghai Buses
Shanghai Maglev / Transrapid
Shanghai Metro
Shenzhen
Shenzhen Buses
Tibet
Tibet - Lhasa
Tibet - Lhasa Monasteries
Tibet - Lhasa - Potala
Turpan or Tulufan
Turpan - Amin Mosque
Turpan - Astana Graves
Turpan - Bezeklik Caves
Turpan - Crescent Moon Lake
Turpan - Dunhuang Caves
Turpan - Echoing-Sand Mountain
Turpan - Ediqut Ruins
Turpan - Emin Minaret
Turpan - Flaming Mountains
Turpan - Gaochang Ruins
Turpan - Grape Valley
Turpan - Green Mosque
Turpan - Jesus Sutras
Turpan - Jiaohe Ruins
Turpan - Karez System
Turpan - Maza Village
Turpan - Mogao Caves
Urumchi or Urumuchi
Xian
Xian Buses
Xian - Hua Qing Pool
Xian - Silk Factory
Xian - Silk Road Monuments
Xian - Terracotta Factory
Xian - Terracotta Army Museum
Yanan
Yanan Buses
Yanan Cave Dwellings




China facts & history in brief                 My China pages directory    
Map of China


Yaodong
Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yaodong is a dugout used as an abode or shelter in China.
Yaodongs are common in north China, especially on the Loess Plateau.
The history of yaodongs goes back to time immemorial, and continues today.

Yaodongs are usually carved out of a generally vertical side of a loess hill.
If the side is not vertical, it must be cut vertical.
The silty soil is soft and easy to dig.
The cross section of a yaodong is similar to that of a cave: a rectangle in the lower part connected to a semi-circle in the upper part.
The width at the floor is from 3 to 4 meters, and the highest point in the ceiling is around 3 meters or higher.
The depth of a yaodong can be 5 meters or more.
Windows and doors are installed at the opening of the yaodong.
The inner side wall is usually plastered with lime to make it white.
A platform called kang is built to
be used as a bed.
A fireplace is built beside the kang and the smoke and hot gas go through the built-in channels inside the kang to heat it before exiting to outdoor through a chimney.

The hill, which is practically infinite in thickness, that separates the indoor space and outdoor serves as an effective insulator that keeps the inside of a yaodong warm in cold seasons and cool in hot seasons.
Consequently, very little heating is required in winter, and in summer, it is as cool as an air-conditioned room.

More exquisite yaodongs may have a facade built with stones with fine patterns carved on the surface.

Yaodongs can also be constructed with stones or bricks as stand-alone structures.
Often, three or more yaodongs in a row are constructed.
First, stones or bricks are used to build the arch-shaped structure, and then soil is used to fill up the external space above the arches to make a thick and flat roof.

The most famous yaodongs in China are perhaps those in Yan'an.
The communists led by Mao Zedong headquartered here in 1935-1948 and lived in yaodongs.
Edgar Snow visited Mao and his party in Yan'an and wrote Red Star Over China.
An estimated 40 million people in northern China live in a yaodong.


For a more information about Yaodong see Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page was retrieved and condensed from (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaodong) see Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, November 2007.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers

This information was correct in November 2007. E. & O.E.



Hui Chin and I caught a bus from Xi'an to Yanan, a four hours, quite enjoyable trip as we seen rural north China on our way getting there.

We were very anxious to see the cave dwellers of northern China and we were told the place is another 60 kilometres from Yanan.

Of course we were very suprised to see many cave dwellings on our way to Yan'an.

In Yan'n we were in for another great surprise as the hills all around Yanan are full of cave dwellings.

We walked up to some of the cave dwllings and were fortunate enough to be invited into one of the dwellings and the very nice people was happy to tell us the long history of the extended family and we were even been invited for lunch.

Mum and Dad spent most of their life in the caves, which is nice and warm in winter and cool in summer.

They had most of the modern comforts, like electricity, TV, refrigirator, computers etc.

They have to bring the water up from the city and the drainage system isn't the most modern either, mostly left to gravity.

Mum and Dad are very happy to spend the rest of their life in their present abode, but most of the young ones left the caves for a more urbane city dwellings.

The few days we spent in Yan'an was filled with drama enjoyable interaction with the local people.
We've enjoyed Yan'an city.





Yan'an 2007

You can click on these photos for an enlargement.

Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
  Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an from the Cave Dwellings Yan'an from the Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellers Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellers Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dweller Yan'an Cave Dweller Yan'an Cave Dweller Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dweller Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings   Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings   Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings
Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings Yan'an Cave Dwellings


 



Site Index         Back to Top         Photos Index

Thanks for coming, I hope you have enjoyed it, will recommend it to your friends, and will come back later to see my site developing and expanding.

I'm trying to make my pages enjoyable and trouble free for everyone, please let me know of any mistakes or trouble with links, so I can fix any problem as soon as possible.

These pages are best viewed with monitor resolution set at 800x600 and kept simple on purpose so everyone can enjoy them across all media and platforms.

Thank you.


Webmaster


free webpage hit counter