For centuries the Ifugao have sculpted these mountains into flights of
irrigated rice terraces, fed by channels that draw water from the mossy forests above.
Five clusters are inscribed by UNESCO - Batad, whose amphitheatre of terraces
rises around a village; Bangaan; the Mayoyao terraces to the east;
Hungduan, which fans out like a spider's web; and Nagacadan in Kiangan.
In 1995 they became the first property ever listed as a UNESCO cultural landscape.
Built live in your browser from real data: NASA SRTM elevation (Mapzen terrarium tiles
from AWS) decoded pixel-by-pixel and displaced at true horizontal scale, draped with Esri
World Imagery - plus a finer ~2.4 m/px imagery inset over the Batad amphitheatre and
Bangaan, where the terrace steps themselves are visible. The valleys here drop more than
a kilometre; the default relief is close to true scale because the Cordillera needs no
exaggeration.