Houtouwan’s Green-Covered Houses: Tang Yuhong’s Village Photographs

The first impression of Houtouwan is green: growth spills over roofs, follows walls and frames empty window openings. Then the shapes of the village emerge from underneath it. Stairs connect levels, lanes trace the hillside and doorways suggest the rooms beyond. Tang Yuhong's photographs are compelling because the vegetation and the settlement remain visible together, each making the other more striking.

Houtouwan is on Shengshan Island in the Shengsi archipelago of Zhejiang province, China. Nearby Gouqi often appears in accounts of the same island journey, which can blur the distinction between the two. When looking up accommodation or transport, keep Shengshan and the village's name together. The correct island is a more useful starting point than a generic description of an abandoned place near Shanghai.

The fishing village beneath the greenery

Houtouwan was a fishing community. Residents gradually moved away as life in the remote settlement became harder to sustain. The Atlantic’s 2015 photographic report documented both the overgrown buildings and people still connected to the place.

The fishing community's past is present in those everyday structures. A staircase existed because someone needed to climb it; a window belonged to a room with a purpose. Many residents gradually moved away, but the word abandoned should not flatten that history into a story of nature defeating people. The gallery becomes richer when the former homes remain homes in the reader's imagination, rather than scenery without owners or memories.

Plan the island connections carefully

The village has attracted visitors for years. A detailed account updated in 2026 describes visitor infrastructure and the relationship between Shengshan, Gouqi and the mainland journey. Read recent local information when arranging transport rather than treating an old photo essay as a ferry timetable.

For a journey to the islands, work through the connections in order: the mainland departure port, the sailing, the arrival point and the final land transfer. Confirm the return arrangements as carefully as the outward trip. Weather and sailing changes can affect an island day, so leave enough room in the schedule to respond without turning every delay into a missed connection.

Read the village at two different scales

A broad hillside view helps explain the settlement's arrangement before you look for individual details. From an authorised visitor route, notice how vegetation meets masonry at a window, roof edge or stairway. A series of photographs that includes both the whole village and these smaller surfaces tells a more complete story than several nearly identical panoramas taken from the same position.

Stay on permitted paths and respect barriers around buildings. A doorway standing open does not establish that the interior is accessible, stable or available for exploration. Objects within a former home are not souvenirs because a room appears unused. Treat the place as a settlement with a continuing human context, including anyone who lives, works or manages visits there now.

Allow the season to change the picture

The density and colour of the greenery will not be identical in every season. Light also changes the impression: a bright wall can separate from its foliage, while a more shaded scene may blend the same forms together. Use the photographs as an introduction to what makes Houtouwan distinctive, then allow the actual conditions of a visit to produce a different view.

For another place where an evocative image can outlive the scene itself, read about Belgium’s former Châtillon car graveyard. Both stories reward curiosity about what happened before—and after—the shutter clicked.

Tang Yuhong's photographs and the continuing story

Tang Yuhong's images bring attention to the surfaces, but they also invite you to look through them. A dark window opening interrupts an otherwise green wall; a line of tiles reveals the roof beneath a covering of leaves. Those small interruptions keep the architecture legible. They are reminders that the village has not simply disappeared into vegetation, however dramatic the wide view may seem.

A photograph records one stage in the relationship between buildings, plants and people. Houtouwan's popularity with visitors is another stage, with its own effects on the paths and the way the place is experienced. Hold those parts of the story together: a former fishing community, a remarkable photographic subject and a place that still needs considerate visitors. That perspective gives the journey more substance than a search for an untouched secret.