Danzhai County

Miao villages are to Danzhai what canals are to Venice or classical ruins are to Athens. The most endearing are set within folds of green hills amid sculpted rice terraces, appearing frozen in time, serving as living museums of the culture and customs of the Miao, one of China’s 56 ethnic groups. Others show more signs of modernity, yet the handsome Miao houses, dark timbered with tapering tiled roofs, are as much a part of the landscape as the vertiginous rice terraces and bulbous green mountains.