Banaue, Philippines

Banaue is a 4th class municipality in the province of Ifugao, Philippines. According to the 2000 census, it has a population of 20,563 people in 3,952 households. It is widely known as the site of the Banaue Rice Terraces.

Sometimes called the "Eighth Wonder of the World", the Banaue Rice Terraces begin at the base of the mountain range and extend several thousand feet upwards. Two of the terrace clusters in Banaue, namely Bangaan and Batad, are part of the Unesco World Heritage inscription. It is said that their length, if put end to end, would encircle half of the globe. Built 2,000 years ago, the rice terraces manifest the engineering skill and ingenuity of the sturdy Ifugaos. They are irrigated by means of mountain streams and springs that have been tapped and channeled into canals that run downhill through the rice terraces.

The rice terraces once stretched northeast to Cagayan and as far south as Quezon. However they are now slowly being abandoned and showing signs of deterioration. A severe 1990 earthquake damaged some of the terraces' irrigation systems, while El Niño triggered droughts that led giant earthworms to erode the terraces' soil. Furthermore, the rice variety most suited to the area's cool climate is not a high-yielding crop; because it takes so long to mature, some Ifugao families have abandoned their land in the rice terraces in favor of land that reaps faster rewards.

An Ifugao Terraces Commission was created in 1994 but has since been superseded by the Banaue Rice Terraces task force, which was closed in 2002.

Source: Wikipedia