Where to Preserve? Evaluating the Integrity Principle for Delineating Protection Scopes of Kaiping Diaolou and Villages

While establishing where to preserve in a world heritage site is critical for heritage protection, management and cultural sustainability, the approach to delineating protection scopes under the integrity principle remains less discussed in literature. This study explores a quantitative approach to evaluating the preservation scopes of the Kaiping Diaolou and Villages (KDVs), a world culture heritage in south China. Diaolous are multiple-story tower dwellings, originally built for defense purposes in the villages of Kaiping, with mixed Chinese and Western architectural styles. We investigate 1629 Diaolous with varying architectural and locational attributes and defensive functions for resisting invasion. We use a GIS-based analysis to identify the boundaries of defensive regions and then categorize them into four types, relying on principal component and clustering analysis. Results suggest that current protection scopes may overlook the spatial organization of Diaolous as a defensive system, failing to consider the cultural value of typology and boundary integrity. The delineation of protection scopes thus need to emphasize functional distribution and organization of historical buildings along with their architectural value.