Sourced from the Hong Kong Post website:   I hope you enjoy seeing this Miniature Sheet.

Hongkong Post has been issuing stamp sheetlets of the World Heritage in China Series since 2012 to showcase our country’s natural and cultural heritage sites inscribed on the World Heritage List of the World Heritage Committee under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 

In 2015, Hongkong Post continues the World Heritage in China Series with a fourth stamp sheetlet on the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, featuring Honghe’s magnificent terraced landscape and its distinctive Hani culture.

Added to the World Heritage List in 2013, the cultural landscape of the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces covers 16,603 hectares of land in southern Yunnan.

 It is marked by the spectacular terraces that cascade down the slopes of the towering Ailao Mountains to the banks of the Hong River. Boasting over 3,700 terrace steps, the massive Honghe Hani Rice Terraces have been continuously used and developed over 1,300-odd years of farming and ploughing. 

The Hani people have devised a complex system of channels to bring water from the forested mountaintops to the different levels of the terraces. The landscape reflects an agro-ecosystem formed by the four interwoven elements of forests, villages, terraces and rivers, demonstrating extraordinary harmony between mankind and the environment.

The stamp sheetlet depicts the picturesque scenery of the terraces of Laohuzui, Bada and Duoyishu at sunset and in the spring mist enveloping the seemingly endless layers of terraces that meander along the slopes and stretch across every ravine of the vast mountainous terrain. 

The capricious sea of clouds, which sometimes shrouds the forests, villages and terraced paddies, adds a dreamlike quality to the awe-inspiring landscape. 

The middle of the stamp sheetlet is decorated with a strip of cloth with colourful Hani motifs to add an ethnic touch to the stamp design.

Michael   www.cddstamps.com