Rice terraces “千枚田”

If you have visited smaller cities on your visit to Japan, you have probably seen these very particular rice fields known as “rice terraces”.

In Japanese it is known as “Senmaida” (千枚田) where Sen “千” means a thousand, mai “枚” means leaf or layer, and da “田” means rice field, so it would mean “fields of a thousand layers” since the terrain is divided into several layers.

Basically, these agricultural lands are farmed in the same way as “flat land” rice fields. Farmers take into consideration the direction where the sunlight is brightest and the water sources are closest and so the rice grows.

It is a beautiful view to spend a good day in the field! ^^

And speaking of layers, the kanji to count flat, thin objects like plates, leaves, CDs, shirts is “mai” 枚. Counting layers it would be:

• 一枚 (いちまい – ichimai)
• 二枚 (にまい – nimai)
• 三枚 (さんまい – sanmai)

… and so on.

That is why the word mai is used in “Senmaida”, because of the many layers in the ground.