Yangmingshan

Yangmingshan National Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Seven Star Mountain with hot springs on the side

Location	Taiwan
Nearest city	Taipei (majority of park within city limits)
Area	113.38 km²^[1]
Established	September 16, 1985

Yangmingshan National Park (Chinese: 陽明山國家公園; pinyin: Yángmíngshān Guójiā Gōngyuán) is one of the nine national parks in Taiwan, located between Taipei and New Taipei City. The districts that house parts of the park grounds include Taipei's Beitou and Shilin Districts; and New Taipei's Wanli, Jinshan and Sanzhi Districts. The National Park is famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, sulfur deposits, fumaroles, venomous snakes, and hiking trails, including Taiwan's tallest dormant volcano, Seven Star Mountain (1,120 m).

History

This mountain range was originally called Grass Mountain (草山; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Chháu-soaⁿ) during the Qing Dynasty, in reference to Datun Mountain (大屯山; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tōa-tūn-soaⁿ). Officials during this period were worried about thieves stealing sulfur from the rich sulfur deposits in the area so they would regularly set fire to the mountain. Thus, only grass and not trees could be seen.

Daiton National Park (大屯国立公園), Taiwan's first national park, was one of three National Parks designated by Governor-General of Taiwan Kobayashi Seizō during Japanese rule in 1937.

In 1950, President Chiang Kai-shek, in order to commemorate the Ming Dynasty scholar Wang Yangming renamed the Grass Mountain to Yangmingshan. In 1962, the then Taiwan Provincial Bureau of Public Works began to plan the Yangmingshan National Park. The initial planning area was 28,400 hectares, including Mount Guanyin and the Tatun Volcano Group.

Landscape and geology

Different from the high mountain national parks, Yangmingshan National Park has a lower elevation. Even though mountain elevations range from only 200–1120 meters, beautiful landscapes such as ridges, valleys, lakes, waterfalls and basins are abundant. Andesite rocks make up most of the area's geology.^[2]

Flora and fauna

Due to the effects of post-volcanic activity and precipitation, soil in the region is highly acidic. With the influence of the northeast monsoon and the area's microclimates, winter temperatures are much lower than the surrounding areas.^[3] The above factors cause the vegetation to differ from those in other regions at the same latitude. Some medium and high altitude plants can be found here such as Bird-lime Tree and Hairy Japanese Maple. Vegetation groups can be divided into subtropical monsoon rain forests, temperate evergreen broadleaf forests and mountain ridge grasslands. There are 1360 species of vascular bundle plants in the region.^[4] Some of the common ones are Red Nanmu, Large-leaved Machilus, Formosan Sweet Gum, Taiwan Cherry, Mori cleyera and Dark Spotted Cherry. The most famous is Taiwan Isoetes in Menghuan pond, an aquatic fern only found in Taiwan. Mt. Datun is one of the most well known places to see some of the 168 different species of butterflies in northern Taiwan. The best time to view the butterflies is from May to August. The most common ones are from the Families Papilionidae, Danainae and Nymphalidae. There are also 122 species of birds in the region.^[5]

Historical and cultural sites

Chinese Culture University
Grass Mountain Chateau - Summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek
Yangmingshuwu - Former Kuomintang Party Archives
Taipei European School
Chung-Shan Building - Meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China
Former Yangmingshan American Military Housing
Guangfu Building - Built in 1971 in Northern Chinese palace style architecture to commemorate the Xinhai Revolution.^[6]
Yangmingshan No.1 Public Cemetery - Contains the graves of Sun Fo and Homer Lea.^[7]
Wuchih Mountain Military Cemetery
Tomb of Yu Youren
Home and grave of famous writer Lin Yutang
Tomb of Puru, painter, educator and cousin of China's last emperor Puyi.^[8]