The Longsheng Longji Rice Terraces are an outstanding world landscape of rice farming culture, a monumental three-dimensional pastoral poem located within the Greater Guilin tourist circuit. As the "star" of tourism brands, images of the Longji Rice Terraces often appear on television, newspapers, and various advertisements and promotional materials, becoming a source of pride for China.
The Longji Rice Terraces consist of the Ping'an Zhuang terraces and the Jin坑 Red Yao terraces. Both sets of terraces feature awe-inspiring craftsmanship and poetic, picturesque settings. Their grand scale and majesty, their strong sense of three-dimensionality, the beauty of their lines and colors, as well as the richness and completeness of the preserved ethnic cultures, surpass all other terraces in the world, truly deserving the title of "world's best."
No terraces in the world match the magnificence and grandeur of the Longji terraces, which resemble unbroken dragons winding endlessly. They possess an overwhelming momentum, with hand-in-hand terraces layering one after another from the foot of the rushing river at Longji Mountain, spiraling upwards to the misty mountain tops (constructed between altitudes of 300 meters to 1100 meters), forming a vast group of terraces that cover the sky and earth. Due to the steep terrain, the densely packed fields look like dragon scales embedded on the mighty dragon body, shining brightly when viewed from afar, resembling a dragon piercing through clouds and fog with great vigor. The Ping'an Zhuang terraces resemble a long dragon meandering forward, exuding a youthful vitality; the Jin坑 terraces form a coiled dragon, creating a "sky pit" spanning ten miles.
The charm of the Longji terraces lies in their artistic beauty. The curved field ridges following the slopes of the mountains create graceful, flowing, and carefree lines, turning this land into a world filled with curves, permeated with the beauty of paintings, sculptures, and music. The life colors of the Longji terraces are as layered as the terraces themselves. In spring, the water warms up, and green dots emerge; in summer, the rice seedlings grow tall, painting the terraces with deep green; in autumn, the theme is golden harvests and fragrance; in winter, covered in snow, they transform into black-and-white woodcuts with distinct colors. With changing weather throughout the day, the Longji terraces present different charms and moods due to the gathering and dispersing of clouds and mist. People say that Longji is a paradise for tourism, a holy land for photography, a place where aesthetic meanings are always unfathomable, and a land of endless allure that can never be fully captured by cameras.
The layers of terraces resemble concentric circles of growth rings, reminding one of the arduous efforts of the Longji ancestors in creating this great work. Construction of the Longji terraces began in the Yuan Dynasty, built through the shouts of mountain-opening chants, constructed with blood and flesh. When most surrounding areas were still in the slash-and-burn agriculture era, with extraordinary perseverance and wisdom, the Longji people created a miraculous human feat that moved heaven and earth.
The vitality and spirit of the Longji terraces lie in water. Fundamentally, the Longji terraces are a "great article" written with water as its core and veins. For this reason, the Longji people have established strict rules since ancient times, prohibiting indiscriminate deforestation and destruction of forests and water sources, and banning slash-and-burn practices that harm the soil and water. The warning sound of gongs has echoed under this blue sky for hundreds of years, resulting in the phenomenon that wherever the Longji mountains rise, so does the water. Thus, despite the vicissitudes of time, the uniquely styled Longji terraces remain vibrant and perfectly intact.
Come and visit Longji! Here, the tourism features are unique:
1. Internationalized rural tourism – here you can experience the local flavor while feeling exotic charm.
2. Local Zhuang and Yao elders will greet visitors with ethnic-specific "HELLO."
3. Anyone aged 10-60 can serve as a guide.
4. What you won't find elsewhere, you'll find here; what you do find elsewhere, you'll also find here – everything is available.
5. Every house can be a guesthouse, featuring traditional stilted farmhouses with a strong ethnic atmosphere, capable of accommodating around 20 people. Guests can cook and prepare their own meals.
6. Chinese come, foreigners come, yellow-skinned, black-skinned, white-skinned, blonde-haired, black-haired, red-haired people all come – imbued with international leisure rural tourism charm, it is a paradise on earth, a utopia beyond the mundane world.