Where are the best-known rice terraces in Bali?

Tegallalang, north of Ubud, and Jatiluwih, on the slopes of Mount Batukaru, are the most famous. Jatiluwih is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

What is the subak system?

The subak is a cooperative way of sharing irrigation water among farmers, organised through water temples. Members agree on planting times, maintain canals together and share water fairly from the top of the valley to the bottom.

When are Bali's rice terraces greenest?

There is no single season, because different subaks plant at different times and fields may be harvested two or more times a year. Fields are usually greenest a few weeks after planting and turn golden shortly before harvest.

Why are Bali's rice terraces under threat?

Tourism development competes for land and water, land prices encourage farmers to sell, and fewer young people want to farm. These pressures can weaken the subak system that keeps the terraces working.

Can I explore the rice terraces of Bali in the app?

Yes. You can walk among terraces modelled on Tegallalang and Jatiluwih and explore the flooded paddies, palms and shrines in interactive 3D.

Green steps carved into volcanic hillsides, fed by water shared through a thousand-year-old temple system

Rice terraces of Bali

3D landscape · Tegallalang, Bali, Indonesia

Land here and explore →

On the Indonesian island of Bali, rice has been grown on hand-built terraces for many centuries. The best-known viewpoints are Tegallalang, a steep, palm-fringed valley north of Ubud, and Jatiluwih, a broad sweep of terraces on the slopes of Mount Batukaru in the island's west-centre. In this app you can walk among terraces modelled on these landscapes and explore them in interactive 3D: curving paddies brimming with water, bright green rice, coconut palms, small shrines and the forested hills beyond.

The terraces are more than a pretty view. Each field is part of a subak, a farmers' association that shares out water from springs, rivers and lakes through canals and tunnels, coordinated through a network of Hindu water temples. In 2012 UNESCO inscribed the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province, including Jatiluwih, as a World Heritage Site, describing the subak as an expression of Tri Hita Karana, a Balinese philosophy of harmony between people, nature and the spiritual world.

Key facts

Model setting: Tegallalang and Jatiluwih, BaliTerraced paddies, coconut palms, shrines and volcanic hills
Country: IndonesiaBali is a province and island east of Java
Irrigation system: SubakCooperative water management organised around water temples
Age of the subak: Many centuriesUNESCO traces it back to around the 9th century; exact origins are uncertain
World Heritage: 2012Cultural Landscape of Bali Province: the Subak System as a Manifestation of the Tri Hita Karana Philosophy
Philosophy: Tri Hita KaranaHarmony between people and the divine, people and each other, and people and nature
Crop: Wet, or paddy, riceGrown in flooded fields; often two or more harvests a year where water allows
Rice cycle: Roughly 3–6 monthsDepends on the variety; traditional Balinese rice grows more slowly than modern types
Similar landscapes: Philippines and VietnamIncluding the Ifugao terraces around Banaue and Mu Cang Chai

How wet rice terraces work

Rice is unusual among cereals because it grows well in standing water. A wet rice terrace is essentially a level, shallow pond cut into a hillside. Farmers dig and build up the slope into a series of flat steps, each held in place by an earth bank, or bund, often reinforced with stones and grass. A layer of puddled clay at the bottom of each field helps it hold water rather than letting it drain away.

Water enters the highest terrace and flows down from field to field through small gaps in the banks, so a single channel can feed a whole hillside. Keeping the fields flooded smothers many weeds, buffers the rice against heat and supplies nutrients carried in the water. Bali's rich volcanic soils, warm temperatures all year and heavy monsoon rains make it ideal for this kind of farming, but only if water can be shared fairly between the farmers upstream and those further down.

The subak and the water temples

A subak is a community of farmers who draw water from the same source and share the work and the decisions. Members meet regularly to agree on planting dates, maintain canals, weirs and tunnels, and settle disputes. Each subak has its own temples, and these link into larger networks of temples serving a whole river valley or lake. At the top of the system stand great temples such as Pura Ulun Danu Batur, on the rim of the Batur caldera, dedicated to the goddess of the lake.

The temples are not only places of worship; they help to coordinate when water flows and when fields are planted. By planting neighbouring fields at roughly the same time and then leaving them fallow or flooded together, farmers can starve rice pests of food and share scarce water efficiently. The anthropologist J. Stephen Lansing showed in the 1980s and 1990s how this ritual calendar works as a practical system of ecological management. When the government encouraged continuous planting of new high-yield rice during the Green Revolution of the 1970s, pest outbreaks and water shortages followed in some areas, and many farmers returned to temple scheduling.

What UNESCO protects

The World Heritage Site covers a group of five sites across Bali, including the Supreme Water Temple of Pura Ulun Danu Batur and Lake Batur, the subak landscape of the Pakerisan watershed, the royal water temple of Pura Taman Ayun and the Catur Angga Batukaru landscape, which includes the terraces of Jatiluwih. Tegallalang, though famous, lies outside the inscribed area.

The colours of the rice year

The terraces change colour as the rice grows, and because neighbouring subaks plant at different times, you can often see several stages on one hillside. After harvest the fields are flooded and ploughed, sometimes with tractors but traditionally with cattle, and for a while they become mirrors reflecting the sky and the palms. Seedlings raised in a nursery bed are then transplanted by hand into the mud in neat rows.

In the following weeks the young plants send out more shoots and the terraces turn a vivid, almost luminous green. As the rice matures it forms flowering heads, or panicles, and the grains begin to fill. Towards the end of the cycle the water is drained and the fields turn yellow and then gold before harvest. Traditional Balinese varieties are tall and slow-growing, while modern varieties are shorter and faster, allowing more harvests a year where water allows.

Ducks, egrets and palms

Rice fields are rich wetlands. Ducks are herded into paddies after harvest and between plantings, where they eat snails, insects, weeds and fallen grain, and their droppings fertilise the soil. A duck herder may lead a flock along the banks with a stick topped by a little flag. Frogs, eels, dragonflies and small fish live in the water, and they attract white egrets and herons, which stalk through the shallows or follow farmers turning the soil.

Coconut palms line the edges of many terraces, giving shade, food, building material and the leaves used to weave the small offering baskets called canang sari, which are placed at shrines in the fields. Banana plants, cacao and other crops grow on the banks and slopes between terraces, and in the forested valleys there are long-tailed macaques and many birds.

Tri Hita Karana

Tri Hita Karana is often translated as the three causes of well-being. It describes harmony between people and the divine, harmony among people, and harmony between people and the natural world. In the rice landscape, these three relationships are expressed in the temples and offerings, in the democratic meetings of the subak, and in careful management of soil, water and forest.

Balinese farmers honour Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice and fertility, with small shrines and offerings at planting and harvest. Forests above the terraces are protected partly because they are sacred and partly because they feed the springs that water the fields. UNESCO's description of the site emphasises that the landscape is the result of this philosophy put into practice over many generations.

Terraces elsewhere, and the pressures on Bali's

Rice terraces are found across Asia. In the mountains of northern Luzon in the Philippines, the Ifugao people have built terraces up steep slopes for centuries; the terraces around Banaue are the most visited, and several Ifugao terrace clusters nearby were inscribed by UNESCO in 1995 as the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras. In northern Vietnam, the terraces of Mu Cang Chai, farmed largely by Hmong communities, are famous for their golden colours before the autumn harvest.

In Bali, the terraces face growing pressure. Tourism brings income, but hotels, villas and swimming pools compete with farms for water, and rising land prices tempt families to sell or build on their fields. Many young people prefer jobs in tourism to the hard work of farming, and some subaks struggle to maintain their canals. Fees from visitors at places such as Jatiluwih help support farmers, and many Balinese organisations are working to keep the subak alive as both a farming system and a cultural tradition.

Surprising facts about Rice terraces of Bali

Balinese farmers coordinate planting through a network of water temples, a system that has been studied as a model of ecological management.
Planting neighbouring fields at the same time and then leaving them fallow together helps starve rice pests of food.
Ducks are walked into the paddies to eat snails and insects, and fertilise the fields as they go.
Tegallalang is one of Bali's most photographed terraces, yet it lies outside the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Some Balinese irrigation channels run through tunnels dug by hand through rock.
Rice is one of the few major cereal crops that grows well in standing water.

Frequently asked questions

Where are the best-known rice terraces in Bali?: Tegallalang, north of Ubud, and Jatiluwih, on the slopes of Mount Batukaru, are the most famous. Jatiluwih is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
What is the subak system?: The subak is a cooperative way of sharing irrigation water among farmers, organised through water temples. Members agree on planting times, maintain canals together and share water fairly from the top of the valley to the bottom.
When are Bali's rice terraces greenest?: There is no single season, because different subaks plant at different times and fields may be harvested two or more times a year. Fields are usually greenest a few weeks after planting and turn golden shortly before harvest.
Why are Bali's rice terraces under threat?: Tourism development competes for land and water, land prices encourage farmers to sell, and fewer young people want to farm. These pressures can weaken the subak system that keeps the terraces working.
Can I explore the rice terraces of Bali in the app?: Yes. You can walk among terraces modelled on Tegallalang and Jatiluwih and explore the flooded paddies, palms and shrines in interactive 3D.

Keep exploring

The landscapes in Ember’s Universe are procedural 3D scenes modelled on real places. The landforms, plants and light follow the real thing, but the details are generated, not mapped.

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