The TangAn village is located about 6 km east of Zhaoxing, half way up Mount Longbao, about 840 meters above sea level. The village was first built in the Jiaqin years of Qing Dynasty (A.D 1795-1820). It is now home to over 170 households and more than 800 people.  The Dong people live together in clans, and the two main clans being the Ying and Lu. They live scattered between the Banbo and Jiding ranges.

The Sino-Norway cooperative 'TangAn Dong Ethnic Eco-museum'
The eco-museum has no particular building but extends the focus to the whole village and the surrounding environment. The eco-museum displays for visitors the terraced fields, the village gates, the local style houses, the drum tower, the roofed bridge, the theatre stage, the ancient graves, the well, the Sasui altor, and the lifestyle of the villagers.

For establishing a Dong ethnic eco-museum, cultural experts from China and Norway chose the village Tang’ an after their detailed analysis and research among a series of Dong villages.

As a representative region, TangAn's ethnic culture factors can be found at Luoxiang, Longtu, Guandong of Congjiang County, GaoAn of Sanjiang County, Guangxi autonomous region, Bayang of Tongdao, Hunan Province, and other Dong people's territory, covering over an area of 100 square km, and a population of 180,000. To be a community, her neighboring villages including Zhaoxing, Xiage, Chengge, Jilun, Jitang, Denggang, Dengjiang and Upper Diping, with an area of more than 100 square km and a population of 10,000, to 10,000 possess a same style of ethic culture.

It's obvious that TangAn is the epitome of all Dong villages around the south dialect region of Dong nationality. It is clear that the eco-museum at TangAn should gain a special Signification of entirely protecting Dong ethnic culture and developing the local social economy.

The information centre of the 'TangAn Dong Ethnic Eco-museum' at the top of the village holds the most comprehensive collection of Dong cultural information in the community.

The Natural Environment and Culture Value of TangAn
The TangAn village is favorably situated on the ridges of the mountain, with all the buildings arranged along the contour line, and centered upon the drum tower and theater stage.

Dong villages are commonly situated at hill bottom and on banks of streams, but TangAn is different from ordinary Dong villages, located half way up the Mount Longte. Looking into the distance from the top of TangAn , you can see peaks spanning all over your vision field rising one higher than another, crisscross paths extends in all directions on the overlapping terraces.

From spring to winter, the village is enveloped with cloud and mist. There are about 100 wooden turrets spotting at the half way up the Mount Longbao, Mountain spring water runs all year round through the turrets and irrigates the terraces surrounding the village.

Around the village, a visitor should seek a wonderful sight of the winding and overlapping terraces. When the forefathers of Dong people dug terraces on steep slope from the button to the top of the mount, they built ridges of the terraces with locally bluestone. Behind the village, there is a special large terrace, with a long ridge of 5 meters height and 150 meters length.

Without written script of their own, in accordance of the oral instruction from generation to generation, the village TangAn now is more than 700 years old. Before the uprising at the area of Niudong led by Wu Mian in the 11the year of Hongwu of Ming dynasty (D.C. 1378), there had been more than 10 households lived at TangAn. In the light of the ancient post road, bluestone paths, ancient graves, ancient dipper-shaped wells, terraces, and other elegant, simple and unsophisticated material objects, show a quaint and weather-beaten impression of TangAn. In addition, Dong folk songs and traditional custom here reflect the thick cultural sediment and special cultural value of TangAn.

Tangible Cultural Heritages
Being always elegant and cool deep in the mountains, the springs here have bubbled year and year. The history has brought up TangAn as an integrated Dong village. It is a distinctive feature for Dong villages that the people alays live together in clans, which include Pan, Ying, Lu, Wu and Yang. They all have lived here in harmony for generations.

TangAn Dong village is formed with following (wooden turrets), drum tower, garish bridge, drama stage, village gates, singing lawn, altar to the Goddess Shasui, dipper-shaped well, grain-drying shelf, grain storehouses, water-powered roller, stone pesties, oil-pressing mills, fishponds, well pavilion, ancient graves and some representative diary utensils etc. The drum tower and roofed bridge are the lavish features of TangAn Dong village, the emblem of unity and symbol of lucky.

TangAn to Zhaoxing
TangAn is on the southern side of Mount Longte, and Zhaoxing is on the north, after 20 minutes of climbing, you will be standing on the summit, the panaramic view of the village of Zhaoxing is a wonderful phto opportunity!  Highly recommend you to do this way: ask your driver to drop you off at TangAn, following your tour guide to walk around TangAn Village to Zhaoxing, where your driver has taken your luggages for tonight's stay there.

Dong Villages
Zhaoxing      Tang'An      Chengyang     

Culture of Dongs
Sanyuejie Festival      Marriage Customs      Music      New Year      Traditional costumes      Drum Towers      Flower Bridges      Lusheng Festival     
Dong Houses     Carrying the Governors Parade      Drama     Rice Planting     Traditional Common Law     Worship the Goddess Sa Sui