The most outstanding places for Tibetan houses in Rongchag, Sichuan Province, are Zhonglu, Jiaju, Niexia and the Meiren Valley. Seen from a distance, the hundreds of homes hidden in the dense mountain forest look like a magnificent landscape painting.

Rongchag Country is located in Garze Tibet Autonomous Prefecture in the west of Sichuan Province. Five rivers merge here - the Greater and the Lesser Jinchuan, the Geshedra, the Donggu and the Dadu. The area is characterized by towering mountains, deep valleys and swift flowing rivers. Scattered among the mountains below the snowline are Tibetan-inhabited villages such as Zhonglu, Pujiaoding, Dazhai, Jiaju and Badi with their own distinct architectural styles. The stepped-back red stone houses, shaded by many different kinds of tree, have a beauty beyond the ordinary. In front and behind the houses grow apple, pear and walnut trees, and in autumn there are just too many fruits to be harvested, so they simply fall to the ground. Sometimes, the sound of fruits dropping to the ground can be heard deep into the night. The villagers and nature live in great harmony here. Besides, there are many sites here in Rongchag that shed light on the mysterious past - including stone coffins dating from 5,000 years ago and, perhaps the best known, its ancient watchtowers.

The watchtowers are military structures left behind by previous generations. They are generally between 20 and 30 meters high, and are a building form unique to Tibetan and Qiang ethnic groups; as a result they are widely distributed in areas inhabited by these minorities. But it is in Rongchag that the greatest concentration and variety of watchtowers can be found, providing examples of every architectural style .A careful visitor will not fail to detect history from the watchtowers.

The Shannan area in Tibet is said to be the birthplace of the watch towers. Their construction went hand in hand with warfare, making Gyarong Tibetan area a key place for watchtowers. Most of the watchtowers in present day Rongchag are relics of campaigns fought along the greater and lesser Jinchuan rivers during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Watchtowers out in the wilds are usually village watchtowers, but the majority belong to individual households. As an integral part of the house, they witnessed the relationship between routine daily life and the life of heroes. In the history of Rongchag, life and warfare were one and the same. There is a kind of harmony between the watchtowers and villages. They do not clash; the earth and stone watchtowers in tune with the fields combine perfectly, bringing into clearer relief the shifting relationship between war and peace.