- Text and Photos by Tom Carter

China is Asia's greatest paradox: the fastest growing economy in the world is also history's oldest civilization. It is where steel and glass skylines are haloed by crumbling walls, and well-heeled bankers rub shoulders with barefooted ethnic minorities.

During my two-year journey to every province and autonomous region in the People's Republic, I have been blessed to visit both the gleaming metropolises of China's future and the sepia-toned remnants of its past.

The following series of photos is taken from my upcoming book of photography ‘CHINA: Portrait of a People.' They capture those remote villages that have yet to meet China's wrecking ball. For a glimpse into China's true history, an excursion in the opposite direction from the crowds, off the proverbial beaten path, will reward the intrepid traveler with sites and experiences incomparable.

QIAN NIAN YAO ZHAI, Liannan Yao Autonomous County, Guangdong

Overshadowed by the neon glare of Guangzhou, South China's notorious capital city of concrete, crowds and crime, and lost in the karst peaks of north Guangdong, 1,000 year-old Qian Nian Yao Zhai is the largest and oldest Yao minority village in the country. Over 7,000 red-turbaned Yao tribes-people once occupied the sloping stone and slate homes. However poverty and generational differences have dramatically reduced the population to less than 200 residents, leaving the mountain village a perfectly preserved portrait of traditional Yao culture.

  GONGTAN, Youyang Tujia-Miao Autonomous County, Chongqing

Nestled beneath the Wuling Mountains and overlooking the jade shoals of the Wu Jiang River, rustic Gongtan was founded in 200AD and is home to the region's Tujia minority people. For centuries accessible only by boat, the Ming Dynasty-era estates are constructed entirely out of wood and perched on stilts against the steep palisades. Unfortunately, the 2,000 year-old architecture is fated for the pyres of modernization when the municipality's local government will bulldoze the village this fall to build the Pengshui Hydro Power Plant. Visit while you can!

ZENGCHONG, Miao-Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou

With ethnic minorities maintaining over 40% of the provincial population, Guizhou is China's least developed but arguably most attractive region. A constellation of uncharted settlements populate the mountains of South-East Guizhou, most notably the secluded Dong village of Zengchong. Surrounded by pyramid-like rice terraces and protected by a crystalline moat, the small islet supports 100 tightly-packed slat board residences and a three hundred year-old wooden drum tower. Master carpenters for centuries, the Dong have possibly constructed the most beautiful village in China.

LANGMUSI, Gansu-Sichuan border

Historically, Sichuan used to be part of Kham Tibet and it still retains much of that untamed flavor. Located 3,000 meters atop the mountains of west China and directly on the Gansu-Sichuan border, Langmusi is a spiritual stopover for resplendent Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims who come to worship at the Sezhi and Geerdeng monasteries.

TIANLUOKENG, Fujian

West Fujian's Hakka people, a subgroup of the Han, migrated to South China during the Qin Dynasty and, to protect themselves from hostile locals, ingeniously constructed clusters of circular, fortress-like homes directly out of the elements. The Tulou rammed-earth structures of Nanjing County span 4 stories and up to 40,000 square meters, housing up to one hundred residents apiece - the epitome of Chinese communal living.

Tom Carter's ‘CHINA: Portrait of a People, 888 snapshots of life and humanity from across the 33 provinces of the People's Republic of China, is due out this winter from Blacksmith Books.