Dwelling Caves (Yaodong)

People both in rural areas or in the downtown like to live in dwelling caves which are mostly built against loess cliff and connected with each other in the Loess Plateau. Sometimes there may appear some tile-roofed houses with adobe walls. Either as dwelling caves or as for tile-roofed houses, people concern only about whether they are strong enough but not the decorations.
On the loess plateau people of a same family live together and make a village naturally. A dwelling cave is often built along or against a loess mound. In some towns of Pingliang and Jingchuan, such residential construction is very typical.
The layout of a facing-south cave is often like that---the kitchen is on the axis, to its right is the host living part and left the reception areal the aisle directly faces to the main door.
Dwelling caves are often oblong-shaped or square-shaped, with length of five to ten meters, and with an area of over 200 square meters. Against a loess mound, usually five or seven caves can be built. Sometimes the number reaches more than ten, but it will always remain an odd. This is related to the sequence of the senior and the junior.
Dwelling caves are cool in summer and warm in winter, in this way they are ideal residential construction for local people. A local saying goes:
A dwelling cave upon a loess cliff,
Connecting with a kitchen, a kang for sweet sleep,
And an erected chimney upward
Would mark my accomplishment of happy life.
(土窑崖庄，锅台连炕，烟囱朝上)

ln Qing Dynasty ( 1636-1911AD), an celebrity Hui Dengjia once wrote a poem to praise dwelling caves:
Gentlemen from distance to this region,
Please don't laugh at it for without mansion.
In dwelling caves, cool in summer and warm in winter,
is almost as same as in heaven.
So lovely that for nothing I would abandon.
(远来君子到此庄，休笑土窑无厦房。虽然不是神仙洞，可爱冬暖夏天凉。)