From the journal
Ping’an, Longji Ancient Zhuang Village and Dazhai are distinct communities within Longji, where residents, houses and changing livelihoods shape the terraced landscape.
In the same city · Guilin ↗
Longji lies in Longsheng Various Nationalities Autonomous County, within Guilin's wider jurisdiction. Landscape research identifies several village-centred scenic areas, including Ping'an, Longji Ancient Zhuang Village and Jinkeng Dazhai.
From a distance, the terraces can appear continuous. At the scale of daily life, the cultivated ground is organised around separate settlements, each with its own fields, paths and relationship to the hillside.
Research based on fieldwork in 2022 distinguishes Ping'an and Longji Ancient Zhuang Village from Huangluo Yao Village and other settlements. Local institutional reporting associates Dazhai with Red Yao residents.
Clothing, songs and architecture take particular forms within these communities and occasions. Cultural presentations join homes, fields and work as parts of village life, giving the broader landscape a more specific human geography.
Regional reporting describes Dazhai’s timber buildings stepping up the hillside, linking their arrangement to the sloping ground. Paths connect homes with cultivated land and the movement of goods; the village is shaped by daily work as well as by its rooflines. A guesthouse is a customer space, while a home remains private, and close photography or blocking a passage can interrupt residents’ ordinary use of the place.
A 2012 study of Ping’an asked residents about tourism’s social and cultural effects, including income, infrastructure, relationships and changes in cultural life. Respondents were generally positive, while attitudes differed with the changes they experienced.
The findings show varied effects: an enterprise can expand one household’s choices while changing a neighbor’s surroundings. The study records residents’ views in 2012.
Researchers describe Longji as a connected pattern of forest, settlement and cultivated land. Homes and working fields remain part of that landscape even where tourism maps emphasize viewpoints. Everyday subjects—a crop, a family business or a new building—belong to Longji’s cultural history alongside festivals, clothing and architecture within the area’s distinct communities.
