UNESCO describes Yuanyang’s Hani terrace system as developed over more than 1,300 years: forested mountaintops collect water, and channels carry it downhill to cultivated fields. Forest, villages, water and terraces form one cultural landscape. A 2025 county report on red-rice cultivation adds a close view of work in named villages, including seedbed preparation and drainage channels.
From the journal
Forest Water on the Way to Hani Terraces
In Yuanyang, forested mountaintops, water channels, villages and rice terraces form a connected landscape built over centuries.
In the same city · Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture ↗Water begins above the fields
A channel is maintained by people
The channels connect the high forested slopes with villages and fields below, but their presence also records repeated work to guide water across steep terrain. UNESCO places this water system within a long history of Hani knowledge and practice; the county report shows that history at the scale of particular agricultural tasks. From a distant overlook a channel may seem like a fine line; at field level it is part of how water reaches the crop.