Caption:
Polar star trails circle around the north celestial pole above Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, a world heritage sites in southwest China. The Honghe Hani Rice terraces cascade down the towering slopes of the Ailao Mountains, carved out of dense forest over the past 1,300 years by Hani people. The irrigated terraces support paddy fields overlooking narrow valleys. In some places there are as many as 3,000 terraces between the lower edges of the forest and the valley floor.