Located at the northern end of Huandao Road, the ancient houses of Shangpan lie to the west of Changjiang’ao Beach, which is the largest single beach in Pingtan, and to the southwest of Guishan Site, a large ancient settlement of Shang and Zhou dynasties. Natural scenery, archaeological site and ancient village thus comprise a unique landscape.

Covering an area of about 40,000 square meters, the building complex of the ancient village is relatively intact. Most of the dwellings in this ancient village were stone buildings between the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, commonly known as “stone houses”. They are mostly courtyard-style, consisting of door walls, patios, guarding rooms, and the main house. The main house is composed of three rooms, with a hall in the middle and wing rooms on both sides, all of which are purlin structure with double sloped roofs. The lower part of the wall is made of tiger-skin like stone, whereas the upper part is the whitely painted adobe wall.

These colorful, castle-style stone houses of Pingtan reflect the vicissitudes of the years and enjoy a reputation as “l(fā)iving fossils of island dwellings”. The well-proportioned stone houses, with their simple and eternal appearance, create the original ecological landscape like a movie set.