Houtouwan: The Green Village on China’s Shengshan Island

From a distance, Houtouwan looks like a hillside that has quietly learned the shapes of houses. Green growth follows walls, frames windows and spills across former living spaces. Look closer and the village’s human structure emerges: stairs, lanes, doorways and the outlines of everyday homes.

The setting is Shengshan Island in China’s Shengsi archipelago, Zhejiang province. Nearby Gouqi Island is often mentioned in the same journey, which helps explain a common mix-up. Houtouwan itself is on Shengshan.

A village with a history before the photographs

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.

That history deserves more than the phrase “nature won”. These were homes, and leaving them involved practical needs and personal decisions. The greenery is visually striking; the traces of family life are what make the scene meaningful.

It is not an undiscovered secret

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.

Island connections introduce an extra planning layer. Find out which port your boat uses, how the last land transfer works and what alternative you have if a sailing changes. Allowing time on the islands can be more pleasant than trying to fit every transfer into the tightest possible day trip.

A better way to explore the view

Start with a broad view to understand how the settlement fits the slope. On the permitted visitor route, look for smaller details: a window opening, a tiled surface, a staircase disappearing into green. Photographing both scales gives you a more complete record than repeating the same hillside panorama.

Keep to authorised paths and respect barriers around buildings. An open doorway in an old photograph does not establish present access or structural safety. Nor does the word “abandoned” mean that land, buildings or objects belong to nobody.

Let the story stay complicated

Vegetation changes with the seasons, and the photograph that inspired your visit may have been made in different light or at a different time of year. There is still plenty to notice without matching it exactly.

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.