Stories
Explore Hypnotic Living Geometry and Stunning Terraced Landscapes Across the Globe
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CNBC TV18•11-10-2026, 12:51
Explore Hypnotic Living Geometry and Stunning Terraced Landscapes Across the Globe
- •The Honghe Hani Rice Terraces in Yunnan, China, span 16,603 hectares and rely on a 1,300-year-old gravity-fed agro-ecological system.
- •The Ifugao Rice Terraces in Luzon, Philippines, feature amphitheatre-style steps carved into the Cordillera Central mountains.
- •The Alto Douro Wine Region in Portugal represents over 2,000 years of viticulture and features traditional narrow stone-walled terraces.
- •The Mu Cang Chai Rice Terraces in Vietnam showcase tight, rhythmic rings sculpted by the indigenous Hmong community along steep ridgelines.
- •The Maras Salt Mines in Peru comprise over 3,000 stepped evaporation ponds fed by a single subterranean hypersaline spring dating back to pre-Inca cultures.
- •The Longji Rice Terraces in Guangxi, China, wind across steep subtropical karst terrain with gradients reaching up to 50 degrees.
Key Questions Answered
The Honghe Hani Rice Terraces system relies on mountaintop forest catchments that trap rainfall, village settlements, terraced paddies, and the river valley below.
While folklore often romanticised the Ifugao Rice Terraces as 2,000 years old, archaeological excavations date the widespread construction of these wet-rice pond fields to roughly 300 to 400 years ago.
The Maras Salt Mines are fed by a single subterranean spring of warm, hypersaline water, where local families regulate flow through narrow channels to fill polygonal ponds for solar evaporation and manual harvesting.
