Just years ago, Xutian Village of Bolou County, nestled at the foot of South China's iconic Luofu Mountain, was a classic "hollow village," its homes abandoned and its future dim. Today, it stands as a shining beacon of rural revitalization, generating millions in revenue for its residents and attracting global acclaim.
This dramatic transformation is a microcosm of Guangdong Province's ambitious "Hundreds of Thousands of Villages and Towns Project," launched in late 2022 to bridge the urban-rural divide and drive coordinated regional development through industrial upgrading, talent attraction, and cultural and ecological enhancement.
At the heart of Xutian's success is the remarkable rebirth of the Lanmen community, a 300-year-old hamlet within Xutian. Once reliant solely on rice farming, Lanmen suffered decades of depopulation as residents moved away, leaving behind dilapidated, uninhabited homes. Its fate changed dramatically with the introduction of a pioneering model: leasing the abandoned village to social capital for 30 years.
Modern homestays arise from Lanmen.
This investment transformed Lanmen into a tourism area that leverages its ecological appeal for experiences such as spiritual retreats, natural escapes, and elderly living for nearby city residents, attracting 340,000 visitors since its inception and generating operating revenue of 26.9 million yuan.
A corner of camping in Lanmen.
The transformation of the Lanmen community has gained worldwide acclaim, garnering four international prizes, including the US's Architizer A+Awards for adaptive commercial reuse, the DNA Paris Design Awards for renovation, and the Swiss BLT Built Design Awards for restoration and renovation in 2024.
Rural transformation embodies Guangdong's broader vision to enhance the rural economy by adapting old village structures to modern industries.
A corner in Xutian Village's old house with a wall inscription saying "Rural Villages, Set Eyes to the World."
In recent years, in addition to turning outdated infrastructure into tourism areas, Boluo County has also actively capitalized on its natural strengths to introduce sports events, aligning with the city's position as "South China's Outdoor Sports Capital." Mofang, a leading outdoor sports organization in China, relocated from Shenzhen to Boluo earlier this year. Various sports events, such as cross-country races, have filled up to 95% of nearby hotel rooms in the county. The county even jointly launched a 218 km "most scenic tourism highway" for both transportation and outdoor sports functions on June 29, which gathered over 3,000 cyclists for its inaugural cycling event, once again bringing traffic flow to nearby hotels and family-run rural restaurants. The area has also tapped into its natural endowments to develop sand radish farming, now yielding an impressive annual output value exceeding 12.5 million yuan.
Traffic flow brought by modern industry like tourism.
Huang Yilin, a local resident now working as a guide at Lanmen, said: "The rural revitalization project has completely reshaped our lives. Villagers received land compensation for land reuse, allowing them to upgrade their homes or invest for dividends. For others like me, it created valuable jobs right here in our hometown."
Reporter | Huang Xinyi
Photos | Publicity Department of Huizhou Municipal Committee
Editor | Hu Nan, James, Shen He
