The Village of Twins in China

Central News Agency Created: Nov 13, 2008 Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008

(China Photos/Getty Images)

TAIPEI—With 98 pairs of twins born since 1954, the Heshan Village in Shimen County, Hunan Province, China has earned the nickname “The Village of Twins”.

 The pairs include 35 pairs of male twins, 41 pairs of female twins, and 22 pairs of pigeon pairs.

The normal birth rate of twins is between one and two percent; however, in this Eastern Chinese village the rate is more than five percent, which has left experts wondering what the reason for this statistically improbable incident of twins could be.

Some of the villagers think that the high rate of twin births is related to the water in the biggest well in the village or certain kinds of food consumed in the village. However, after field surveys, no conclusions could be made.

“There may be a ‘twin gene,’ causing the villagers to have twins at such a high rate,” says Xia Jiahui, a professor of genetics and director of the Eugenics Laboratory at Hunan’s Xiangya Hospital. However, there is no scientific proof of this theory and the twins of the Heshan village remain a mystery.

Read the original article in Chinese