The Liufang Bridge is one of the many engineering marvels in Taiwan's Taroko National Park

Located between the Northeast Coast National Scenic Area and the East Coast National Scenic Area, the magnificent Taroko Gorge is Taiwan’s primary tourist destination after Taipei, and well worth the effort of going there. Bus tours can be easily booked from Taipei, and any traveler to Taiwan is recommended to carve out a day or two to visit it. It’s only 60 km southeast of Taipei on the eastern side of the island, but will take a day to get there. The ocean scenery on the way is spectacular.

Taroko National Park covers more than 92 square kilometers in the northern section of the Central Mountain Range. This park features high mountains and sheer gorges. 27 of Taiwan’s ‘Top 100’ (peaks towering over 3,000m in elevation) are located within the parks’ boundaries. Mountain vistas, gorge views, and diverse flora and fauna are among the park’s highlights.

Much of the remarkable scenery can be easily viewed on a 14 km drive through the gorge, with numerous stopping points, including several that include short, scenic walks that are right off the roadway. The road itself is a wonderful engineering feat, with scenic bridges and tunnels. You can easily spend several days here enjoying the numerous marked trails, or you can spend one day and still see some mighty impressive sights. Highlights from the road include the Tunnel of Nine Turns and Swallow Grotto trails, each of which includes magnificent gorge views, are of flat walking terrain, and take roughly one hour each.

When you get to the park, we here at WoWasis recommend buying the impressive and informative 175 page guidebook Trails of Taroko: Gorge and Su-hua Areas (2008, ISBN 986-00-2835-4), which includes comprehensive trail maps and an explanation of the geology, flora, and fauna of the park, as well as the story of the local Taroko indigenous people.

Rock weathering along Troko Gorge's Swallow Grotto Trail

If you’re traveling to Taiwan on business, you’ll be in Taipei or in the highly populated western part of the island. We strongly recommend that you consider taking a brief trip to Taroko to see a wonderfully scenic part of Taiwan that no visitor should miss.

The following information is from Taroko National Park’s website, which also includes maps, driving and train directions:

The formation of Taroko Gorge

According to theory of plate tectonics, the Penglai Orogeny was caused by the collision of the Philippine Oceanic Plate and the Eurasian Continental Plate. The Penglai Orogeny occurred 4 million years ago. At that time, thick layers of calcareous rock that had been raised from the marine depths during earlier orogenies were now gradually pushed high above the ocean surface to form lofty peaks. During this period of immense tectonic forces, the high pressures and temperatures of compression folded and metamorphosed the original rock (limestone) turning it to marble. At present, this region is still being uplifted at the rate of O.5cm a year. The area has experienced both geologic uplifting and river erosion by the Liwu River. This area is unique for its marble gorge that occasionally forms hundreds of meters high, a phenomenon seldom found elsewhere in the world.

Fauna

There are 34 species of mammals found in the park, including the black bear, Formosan Macaque (rock monkey), serow, wild boar, and sambar deer, etc. There are 144 species of birds, such as Swinhoe’s pheasant, Formosan blue magpie, Finches, and Formosan Laughing Thrush, etc.

Flora

The elevation ranges from sea level up to 3700m and includes several different climate zones. The vegetation found in the park includes: alpine juniper forest, dwarf bamboo formation, fir, hemlock, spruce, pine and hardwoods, Taroko oak and Chinese photinia.