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The Longsheng Rice Terraces (simplified Chinese: 龙胜梯田; traditional Chinese: 龍勝梯田; pinyin: Lóngshèng Tītián) are located in Longsheng County, about 100 km (2 hours drive) from Guilin, Guangxi, China. The most popular are Ping An Rice Terrace and Jinkeng Rice Terrace.

The terraced fields are built along the slope winding from the riverside up to the mountain top, the highest part being 880 m in elevation while the lowest part is 380 m^{[citation needed]}. The coiling line that starts from the mountain foot up to the mountain top divides the mountain into layers of water glittering in the sun in spring, layers of green rice shoots in summer, layers of golden rice in fall, and layers of silvery frost in winter. The terraced fields were mostly built during the Ming Dynasty, about 500 years ago^{[citation needed]}.

Longji (Dragon's Backbone) Terraced Rice Fields received their name because the rice terraces resemble a dragon's scales, while the summit of the mountain range looks like the backbone of the dragon. Visitors standing on the top of the mountain can see the dragon's backbone twisting off into the distance. In an early morning, when the weather is fine, the sunrise on the summit of Longji Rice Terraces is magnificent.

China (ⁱ/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state located in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The PRC also claims Taiwan – which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity – as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War.

In agriculture, a terrace is a piece of sloped plane that has been cut into a series of successively receding flat surfaces or platforms, which resemble steps, for the purposes of more effective farming. This type of landscaping, therefore, is called terracing. Graduated terrace steps are commonly used to farm on hilly or mountainous terrain. Terraced fields decrease erosion and surface runoff, and are effective for growing crops that require a lot of water, including rice. The only rice terraces to be recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site are the rice terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras.

Terraced paddy fields are used widely in rice farming in east, south, and southeast Asia, as well as other places. Drier-climate terrace farming is common throughout the Mediterranean Basin, e.g., in Cadaqués, Catalonia, where they were used for vineyards, olive trees, cork oak, etc., on Mallorca, or in Cinque Terre, Italy.

In the South American Andes, farmers have used terraces known as andenes for over a thousand years to farm potatoes, maize, and other native crops. Terraced farming followed complex systems developed over centuries by Inca engineers to conserve scarce water in the mountains. The terraces were built to make the most efficient use of shallow soil and to enable irrigation of crops. The Inca used a system of canals, aqueducts, and puquios to direct water through dry land and increase fertility.^{[citation needed]} These terraced farms are found wherever mountain villages have existed in the Andes. They provided food necessary to support the populations of great Inca cities and religious centres such as Machu Picchu.

Agriculture is a vital industry in China, employing over 300 million farmers. China ranks first in worldwide farm output, primarily producing rice, wheat, potatoes, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, cotton, oilseed, pork, and fish.

Longsheng Various Nationalities Autonomous County is a county of Guangxi, China. It is under the administration of Guilin city.

The Yao of Longsheng County live in:

Ethnic subdivisions of the Yao of Longsheng County are:

Guìlín (Chinese: 桂林; Zhuang: Gveilinz) is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China, sitting on the west bank of the Li River. Its name means "forest of Sweet Osmanthus", owing to the large number of fragrant Sweet Osmanthus trees located in the city. The city has long been renowned for its unique scenery of Karst topography and is one of China's most popular tourist destinations.

The primary purpose of agriculture is food production but concern for other objectives (e.g., wildlife, conservation, biodiversity, recreation and scenery) have a long history and are of increasing importance in wealthy and urbanized countries. The European Union Set-Aside Policy was designed as a means of giving money to farmers to produce non-food environmental goods from farmland. Landscape planners are involved with the preparation of agricultural landscape plans for the achievement of non-food objectives from agricultural land.