Clouds drift across the green Longji Rice Terraces near Guilin, briefly hiding the fields as if they had come down to check on the rice.
The Longji Rice Terraces disappeared beneath the clouds almost as quickly as I could photograph them. One moment I was looking across vivid green slopes, and the next, ribbons of mist were moving through the valley as if the clouds had come down to inspect the rice personally.
I photographed this landscape in Longsheng County, not far from Guilin in China’s Guangxi region. The terraces follow the natural contours of the mountains, creating hundreds of curved green lines that seem to flow across the slopes. Longji means “Dragon’s Backbone”, and from this viewpoint it was easy to understand the name—the fields looked like enormous scales covering the body of a sleeping dragon.
What impressed me most was not only the size of the landscape but also the harmony between human work and nature. These mountains have been carefully shaped by generations of farmers, yet nothing here feels artificial. The terraces, forests, clouds and distant valleys appear to belong to the same composition.
I waited as the mist moved between the hills, hiding some terraces and revealing others. It gave the scene a constantly changing rhythm. Apparently, even clouds get curious when the rice grows somewhere this spectacular.
- Date
- 2026-01-01