page_title: Roof tiles
section_title: In China
hierarchical_section_title: Roof tiles / In China
caption_attribution_description: English: Tiled roof in Hainan, China
context_page_description: Roof tiles are designed mainly to keep out rain, and are traditionally made from locally available materials such as terracotta or slate. Modern materials such as concrete and plastic are also used and some clay tiles have a waterproof glaze.
  Roof tiles are 'hung' from the framework of a roof by fixing them with nails. The tiles are usually hung in parallel rows, with each row overlapping the row below it to exclude rainwater and to cover the nails that hold the row below. There are also roof tiles for special positions, particularly where the planes of the several pitches meet. They include ridge, hip and valley tiles. These can either be bedded and pointed in cement mortar or mechanically fixed.
  Similarly to roof tiling, tiling has been used to provide a protective weather envelope to the sides of timber frame buildings. These are hung on laths nailed to wall timbers, with tiles specially molded to cover corners and jambs. Often these tiles are shaped at the exposed end to give a decorative effect. Another form of this is the so-called mathematical tile, which was hung on laths, nailed and then grouted.
context_section_description: In China, roof tiles are in use throughout the country on temples and village houses. Both imbrex and tegula and mission tiles are used.
  Temples typically use glazed, often ornate tiles and antefixes. The most common traditional colour is orange-yellow.
  Old buildings mainly have simple, clay tiles that have been fired in a kiln. Tiled roofs, while once ubiquitous in China, are now used less. One reason for this is that the majority of new houses and apartment buildings in China are built with flat roofs.
caption: A roof in Hainan tiled using imbrices and tegulae
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