Mayoyao Rice Terraces

The Mayoyao Rice Terraces are a cluster of ancient stone-walled terraces located in the municipality of Mayoyao in Ifugao Province, northern Luzon, Philippines. Part of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, they are distinguished by stone masonry and interlinked with traditional villages. Carved into steep mountainsides by Ifugao ancestors, the terraces remain actively cultivated with rice and demonstrate enduring indigenous agricultural engineering and landscape management.

Visitors can expect expansive, steep mountainsides carved into stone-walled rice terraces that are still actively farmed. The landscape features layered paddies, traditional Ifugao houses, small hamlets, and forested slopes with panoramic viewpoints above the valley. Trails lead through terraces and villages where farmers can be seen working. The setting is rural and tranquil, with opportunities for photography, short walks and guided treks to viewpoints and nearby cultural sites.

The Mayoyao Rice Terraces were carved by Ifugao ancestors using stone-wall engineering and traditional knowledge passed through generations. Traditionally believed to be over 2,000 years old, recent studies suggest a more recent but still centuries-old origin. They form part of the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, representing an enduring example of harmonious human-environment adaptation in the Cordillera highlands.

The terraces are central to Ifugao cultural identity and community life, reflecting traditional rice cultivation, communal labor systems, rituals tied to the agricultural cycle, and indigenous engineering. The landscape includes traditional houses, granaries and village structures, and remains a living cultural landscape where farming practices, festivals and crafts continue.