Hani Rice Terraces of Honghe - The Harmonious Landscape of Nature and Humans

Abstract

The Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, set in the mountainous slopes that flow to the valleys of the Hong River in the southern Yunnan Province, is a cultural product of rice farming. The rice terraces were created by a particular ethnic group that utilised the water and vegetation resources of their unique geography and climate. Today, after hundreds of years of cumulative effort, the terraces constitute a breathtaking cultural landscape. The rice production technology interwoven with the local people’s cultural spirituality and governance is a unique way of living that has been developing over a thousand years, creating and maintaining a spectacular landscape. The Hani Rice Terraces in the Honghe region of China’s Yunnan province was inscribed as a cultural landscape on the World Heritage List in 2013 for bearing a unique testimony to a cultural tradition and as an outstanding example of traditional human land-use. This study describes the unique property with its spatial structure of forest water and village terrace systems and discusses the physical factors that sustain this landscape. Indivisible from the landscape is the culture of the local Hani people, their land-use and management, along with their traditional practices and spiritual values that sustain the landscape. In recent years, this extraordinary, expansive region has become a popular destination for photographers, anthropologists, folklorists, ethnologists and scholars studying traditional villages. The study also raises issues on how the landscape can be maintained in contemporary times with tourism and modern living aspirations.