Chocolate Hills
Interesting facts
- The hills appear on the provincial flag and seal of Bohol as an emblem of the island's natural wonders.
- Their limestone is packed with fossils of shallow-sea life — foraminifera, corals, molluscs and algae — from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene.
- Geologists class the landscape as cockpit karst, and the limestone cones rest on a base of hardened clay, with caves and springs hidden within them.
- The grass that turns brown each dry season is dominated by cogon grass and wild sugarcane.
- Popular theories of a volcanic origin collapse on one simple point: no volcanic rock has been found anywhere in the hills.
- The flat ground between the cones is farmed, with rice paddies threading through the gaps between the mounds.
- The hills were the third site in the Philippines to be declared a National Geological Monument.
- When a magnitude 7.2 earthquake centred near Sagbayan struck Bohol in October 2013, part of one hill gave way.
- According to one legend, the mounds are the tears of a giant named Arogo, shed for Aloya, the mortal woman he loved.
Why it is worth it
The Chocolate Hills are one of the strangest landscapes in Southeast Asia: well over a thousand rounded, almost identical grassy mounds spread across the interior of Bohol island, like a field of giant haycocks or upturned bowls. Estimates of their number run from 1,268 to 1,776, scattered over more than 50 square kilometres. Most are 30 to 50 metres high, the tallest about 120 metres, and between them lie flat valley floors. In the dry season the grass that covers them turns brown, and the hills take on the colour that gave them their name.
They are a form of cone karst. The hills are made of marine limestone, rich in fossils, laid down on the sea floor a few million years ago and then raised above sea level. Rain and groundwater dissolved the rock along cracks and weak zones, leaving the more resistant parts as regular cones while the ground between them was worn down. The neatness of their shapes, and how evenly they are spaced, is what makes the place so arresting.
Local stories explain them differently. One tells of two giants who hurled rocks and sand at each other for days and left the battlefield littered with their missiles. Another tells of a giant who wept for a lost love, his tears hardening into hills, and yet another of a children's contest of mud cakes left to dry in the sun. The hills extend across several towns of the island, including Carmen, Batuan and Sagbayan.
The hills were declared a National Geological Monument in 1988 and are on the Philippines' tentative list for World Heritage; since 2018 they have been protected by law as a national park. The classic view is from the hilltop complex at Carmen, reached by a stair of 214 steps, where the cones stretch away in every direction. Go early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when the low light picks out each mound and its shadow.
Getting there
The hills lie in the interior of Bohol, about 17 km from the town of Inabanga and about 55 km from Tagbilaran, the island's capital. Bohol–Panglao International Airport (TAG), about 1.5 to 2 hours away by road, is the practical gateway; Mactan–Cebu International Airport (CEB) on neighbouring Cebu is about 48 km away, but across the sea. From Tagbilaran's Dao terminal, buses run to Carmen, from where a tricycle covers the last few kilometres to the viewing complex.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Chocolate Hills are a geological formation in the Philippine province of Bohol. A minimum of 1,260 hills, and possibly over 1,776, spread over an area of more than 50 square kilometers (20 sq mi). They are covered in green grass that turns a chocolate-brown during the dry season, hence the name.
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