Posted 2017/5/9
The terraces in the south of the Ailao Mountain in Yuanyang County of Yunnan Province are a great work of the Hani ethnic group handed down from one generation to another. The terraces in Yuanyang is created by opening up the slopes of mountains exactly according to the mountain conditions, with gentle slopes being made into big fields and steep slopes into small fields. Even the crevices under the ditches and the ridges have been opened up for cultivation. Therefore, a big terrace covers several mu (a unit of area, =0.0667 hectares) while a small one is no bigger than a dustpan. In some cases, a slope is made into a terrace covering thousands of mu.
The Yuanyang terraces are grand and imposing, extending to areas like Honghe, Yuanyang, Lvchun and Jinping counties along the south bank of the Honghe River, with 170,000 mu terraces within Yuanyang County alone. Yuanyang is the core area of the Hani terraces along the Honghe River. Yuanyang County is characterized by lofty mountains, so all the terraces are built on mountain slopes, and the grades of the terraces range from 15 to 75 degrees. The highest number of terraces on one mountain slope reaches 3,000. It is something of a rarity in terrace layout in China and the whole world.
