Jiuzhaigou Valley
Fairyland of turquoise lakes, waterfalls, and snow-capped peaks.
View DetailsAbout This Spot
Longsheng Rice Terraces, better known as Dragon's Backbone Terraces, form a jaw-dropping agricultural landscape carved into steep mountain slopes of northern Guangxi over six hundred fifty years ago. The terraces stretch from river valley floors at 300 metres (984 ft) all the way up to 1,100 metres (3,609 ft) elevation, wrapping mountain ridges like giant coiled dragons—hence the iconic name.
The scenery shifts drastically with every season: lush bright green summer rice paddies, mirror-like silver flooded fields in spring before planting, glowing golden stalks during autumn harvest, and frosted delicate curve patterns in quiet winter months. Tiny Zhuang and Yao ethnic villages dot the hillsides, filled with traditional wooden stilt homes and living cultural customs. Winding hiking trails connect villages, delivering nonstop views of this stunning balance between human farming and raw mountain geography. Many landscape photographers travel here specifically for spring water reflection shots and golden autumn harvest scenes, calling Longji one of China's most underrated rural photo spots.
Highlights
- - 650-year-old layered mountain terraces
- - Dragon's Backbone mountain formation
- - Seasonal transformations (green, golden, silver)
- - Zhuang and Yao ethnic villages
- - Scenic hiking trails
- - Sunrise and sunset photography
Gallery
Travel Tips
Stay overnight on the terraces for sunrise and sunset. Ping'an and Dazhai are the main villages. Wear hiking shoes with good grip. Bring water for hikes. Try bamboo tube rice and local tea. Hire a local guide for the best photography spots.
Cultural Notes
Longji Terraces cover 66 square kilometres (25 sq mi) of mountain slopes between 380–1,180m (1,247–3,871 ft) altitude, one hundred kilometres (62 mi) northwest of Guilin in Longsheng Ethnic Autonomous County. Zhuang and Yao communities began carving these layered fields starting in the Yuan Dynasty (1271 AD), seven hundred years of continuous farming history total.
Three distinct terrace zones cater to different traveller preferences:
Jinkeng (Dazhai) Thousand-Storey Windmill Terraces sit highest at 1,180m (3,871 ft), delivering the most dramatic wide-angle shots, run by Red Yao villagers and slightly harder to reach;
Ping'an Zhuang Village holds the classic Seven Stars Around Moon terrace layout printed on decades-old postcards at 1,000m (3,281 ft), ideal for quick day trips from Guilin, inhabited by Zhuang people;
Longji Ancient Zhuang Village preserves the original thousand-year-old terrace construction methods, with far fewer tourist crowds overall.
Red Yao women from Huangluo Long Hair Village hold a Guinness World Record—120 local ladies sport hair longer than 1.4m (4.6 ft), only cutting their locks once at age eighteen. Daily 10 AM and 3 PM river hair-washing ceremonies cost ¥50 (
$7) entry including photo opportunities.
Ping'an Zhuang stilt houses split three functional levels: ground floor shelters livestock, middle floors hold family living spaces, top attics store harvested grain. The carved welcome drum at the village entrance only gets struck by the village chief using a twelve-beat ritual rhythm—tourists cannot touch or hit the drum, locals believe it calls ancestral field spirits.
Two major annual cultural festivals draw crowds: the June second weekend Rice Transplanting Opening Festival, where five hundred Zhuang farmers plant the first rice seedlings in traditional costume alongside water buffalo, followed by a chaotic mud battle between young men and women—come prepared with full spare clothes and waterproof boots, mud splatters everyone without exception. The September Golden Sun-Drying Festival sees Red Yao ladies hang three-hundred-year-old hand-indigo wedding dresses and quilt covers across bamboo poles on every hillside balcony, turning the entire mountain deep blue, the single most photogenic day of the year.
Photography peak seasons: late May to early June flooded reflection season (seven days after seedling planting), October 1–15 golden mature rice harvest, plus rare frosty snow covering terraces January to February.
No paved roads lead up to the highest viewpoint lodges, so local Yao mountain porters carry tourist luggage up steep slopes. Official porter service charges ¥50 ($7) for twenty-kilogram bags over a one-hour climb, staffed by village women earning school fees for their children. Don't haggle prices below ¥30 (
$4)—porters carry emergency first aid kits as part of their official work requirements, undercutting their wage hurts the whole village community.
Drone flights banned within a 2km (1.2 mi) radius of Ping'an and Jinkeng terraces; the layered geometric fields serve as military satellite remote sensing calibration sites. Violators face drone confiscation plus a ¥5,000 ($694) fine.
Local Food & Drink
Local Longsheng cuisine mixes Zhuang and Yao mountain cooking styles, focused on bamboo-cooked meals, air-dried preserved meat and wild foraged hill greens.
Bamboo tube rice, stuffed with glutinous rice, smoked bacon, wild mushrooms and dried longan inside fresh three-year-old moso bamboo tubes roasted over pine charcoal, releases sweet bamboo aroma into every grain. Zhuang women sell these outside every shuttle bus stop for ¥18 (
$2) per tube, the thin bamboo inner skin inside is edible too.
Zhuang Family Inn, a fourth-generation village restaurant 1.5km uphill from Ping'an's primary terrace, serves famous tea-leaf baked chicken marinated in ten herbs and twelve-year fermented soy sauce, wrapped in wild tea leaves and slow-cooked ninety minutes inside clay pots. Order two hours ahead—the chicken's still roaming the yard when you place your reservation. A whole bird costs ¥160 ($22).
Lemongrass charcoal roasted bamboo rat counts as a traditional Red Yao winter hunter's dish, the rodent feeds solely on bamboo roots, tasting like rich dark rabbit with subtle bamboo undertones, priced ¥98 (
$14) per whole animal for adventurous eaters only.
Red Yao fermented glutinous rice wine hits 8% ABV, aged one hundred days in two-hundred-litre oak attic barrels. Homestay welcome toasts follow strict custom: first bowl drunk standing, second kneeling, third poured onto the ground to honour mountain gods.
Zhuang sour bamboo shoot pork soup, a staple dish at every hillside restaurant, combines pickled bamboo shoots, mountain pork and fresh ginger noodles for ¥28 ($4) per bowl.
Wild vegetable fritters mix thirteen types of edible hill greens, Red Yao chilli paste and highland rice flour deep-fried into patties for ¥18 (
$2) for four pieces.
Ancient thousand-year tea trees grow on terraces at 1,000m (3,281 ft), producing only forty kilograms of tea leaves annually, most exported overseas to Japan. Official tea shop in Ping'an Village Square sells fifty-gram tins for ¥280 ($39), look for anti-counterfeit blue stickers to avoid counterfeit stock.
Dessert: five-colour natural glutinous rice drizzled with sweet osmanthus syrup, matching similar Zhuang rice recipes seen in Guilin region.
Local Zhuang homemade pomelo wine ferments pomelo peel and rock sugar for two years at 15% ABV, sold at ¥80 (
$11) per litre as a popular souvenir liquor.
Daily food budget runs ¥70 ($10) to ¥130 ($18) per person. Seven halal restaurants operate in Longsheng County Town, but none sit within the scenic terrace zone—pack halal-friendly snacks or notify village restaurants one day early to prepare pork-free dishes if you follow Muslim dietary rules.
