Cultural Landscape of Bali Province: the Subak System as a Manifestation of the Tri Hita Karana Philosophy

Bali's rice terraces are engineered by faith as much as by water. Five terraced landscapes and their water temples, 19,500 hectares in all, run on subak — a cooperative arrangement of canals and weirs dating to the 9th century, guided by the philosophy of Tri Hita Karana that binds spirit, humanity and nature. Pura Taman Ayun, an 18th-century royal water temple, is the system's grandest built monument. UNESCO inscribed the cultural landscape in 2012.