Over the past two decades, Zhuge village in Lanxi, a county-level city in Jinhua, East China's Zhejiang province, has been making efforts to protect its traditional buildings that date back to the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911).
The village, which boasts more than 300 such buildings, has implemented a series of measures, including renovating the buildings, upgrading roads, and transferring land rights to improve the living environment.
The village also established a tourism development company in 2002 to develop its tourism industry, which in turn will aid in the protection of its cultural relics.
The village, which is home to one of the largest groups of descendants of Zhuge Liang (181-234), a prominent statesman, military strategist, and literati in the Three Kingdoms period (220-280), has been tapping into its cultural attractions to boost tourism.
Authorities encourage residents to run homestays, cafes, tea houses and bookstores and develop Zhuge-themed tourism products such as fans and locks to provide jobs, with the goal of employing more than 400 residents and generating annual tourism revenue of 160 million yuan ($22.29 million).
The collective income of the village increased from 2.6 million yuan in 2003 to 25 million yuan in 2022, while per capita disposable income rose from 3,500 yuan in 2003 to 58,666 yuan in 2022.
Residents are eligible to receive social insurance, medical insurance, personal accident insurance and scholarships, while seniors aged 60 or over are eligible to receive a living allowance every month.
