Houtouwan: The Chinese Fishing Village Swallowed by Green

On the northern coast of Shengshan Island, in an archipelago off China's eastern coast, a village of stone houses climbs a steep hillside above a small bay. Nearly every wall, roof and stairway is wrapped in thick green vines, so that the whole village looks as if it's been swallowed by the hill. This is Houtouwan, whose name means "back bay." It was settled in the 1950s as a fishing village, and it grew prosperous. At its height, it was home to more than 2,000 fishermen and their families, living in about 500 homes stacked up the slope. But the village had disadvantages that grew harder to live with. It was remote, poorly connected to the mainland, and short on schools and jobs. The small bay couldn't keep up with the needs of a growing fishing industry, and families began moving to the mainland in search of better work and education, as people did from many small Chinese villages in those years. The exodus picked up in the early 1990s, and by 1994 only a handful of people remained. In 2002, Houtouwan was officially depopulated and merged into a nearby village. With no one to cut them back, the plants moved in. Vines climbed the walls, crept across the roofs and filled the doorways and windows. Over the years, the empty houses turned green. In 2015, a set of photographs of the overgrown village spread across the internet, and Houtouwan suddenly became famous. Tourists started arriving in large numbers. Local officials were cautious at first, then built a viewing platform overlooking the village in 2017 and began charging admission to walk its paths. A few people still live in or around the village, and some now earn a living from the visitors, selling water and snacks to the tourists who come to photograph the green houses.