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A drum tower () or gulou is a tower in the center of an old Chinese city or village, housing signal drums. There was usually also a
A drum tower () or gulou is a tower in the center of an old Chinese city or village, housing signal drums. There was usually also a bell tower
A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tow ...
nearby.
There were once found all over China in villages, marking the symbolic center of the settlement and used to mark nightfall and to summon the people for civic ceremonies and significant occasions, such as Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival () a ...
.
The drum tower often being located in the symbolic center of a city, downtown districts of several Chinese cities have been named after the tower.
See also
* Drum tower (Chinese Buddhism), a different type of drum towerIndividual drum towers
* Gulou and Zhonglou (Beijing) ( Drum Tower and Bell Tower of Beijing) * Drum Tower of Xi'an * Drum Tower of Nanjing * Bianjing Drum TowerReferences
Architecture in China * Towers Traditional East Asian Architecture {{PRChina-struct-stub