The Hakkas (Kejia in Mandarin, or "guests") put up the first circular houses here toward the end of the Tang Dynasty. Descendents of Han Chinese born in the cradle of Chinese civilization along the Yellow River basin, the Hakkas fled south in several migrations over the centuries, lighting on Fujian after a peasant rebellion in 880 A.D. As outsiders, they were vulnerable to attacks by neighbors, bandits, roving armies and wild animals, and so built themselves circular fortresses protected by 18 meter-tall clay and sandstone walls, bound together with a mixture brown sugar and sticky rice, to keep intruders out. Buildings have only one door, and just a few windows, high up in the structures.

Chengqi Lou, constructed in 1709, is the oldest surviving Hakka earth building in modern day Yongding, home to generations of the Jiang family. At its peak, there were 1,000 people living in the 240 ft-diameter tulou, but with many young people now opting to live in modern apartments, numbers have tumbled to about 54 families and only 300 people. Today's inhabitants are primarily old people and their grandchildren, the able-bodied young men and women having deserted their ancestral homes to migrate to the cities.

Huanji lou ,it was built in 1633 and located in Nanxi.

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