The
Chocolate Hills is an unusual geological formation in Bohol, Philippines.
It is composed of around 1,268 perfectly cone-shaped hills of about the same size, spread over an area of more than
50 square kilometres (20 sq mi). They are covered in green grass that turns brown during the dry season, hence the name.
The Chocolate Hills is a famous tourist attraction of Bohol.
It is featured in the provincial flag and seal to symbolize the abundance of natural
attraction in the province. It is in the Philippine Tourism Authority's list of tourist destinations in the Philippines;[3] it
has been declared the country's 3rd National Geological Monument and proposed for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The
Chocolate Hills are Bohol's famous attraction. Photographer Salvador Andre notes: Most people who first see
pictures of this landscape can hardly believe that these hills are not a man-made artifact. However, this idea is
quickly abandoned, as the effort would surely surpass the construction of the pyramids in Egypt.
There is no natural formation like them in the world. From a distance, they look like half a ball grown out of the ground. The molehill-shaped and almost uniformly sized hills dot the landscape with green and brown.
The Chocolate Hills is a rolling terrain of haycock hills – mounds of general shape which are conical and almost symmetrical. Estimated to be at least 1,268 individual mounds to about 1,776, these cone-shaped or dome-shaped hills are actually made of grass-covered limestone.
The domes vary in sizes from 30 to 50 metres (98 to 160 ft) high with the largest being 120 metres (390 ft) in height.
They are scattered throughout the towns of Carmen, Batuan and Sagbayan in Bohol. Bohol's "main attraction",
these unique mound-shaped hills are scattered by the thousands on the island's central plain, concentrated near the town of Carmen.
During the dry season, the precipitation is inadequate such that the grass-covered hills dry up and turn chocolate brown. This transforms the area into seemingly endless rows of "chocolate kisses". The branded confection is the inspiration behind the name, Chocolate Hills.
