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Taroko National Park
	Taroko National Park
	IUCN Category II (National Park)
	; Tunnel of Nine Turns
Location	Taiwan
Nearest city	Hualien City
Coordinates	24°10′N 121°20′E / 24.167°N 121.333°ECoordinates: 24°10′N 121°20′E / 24.167°N 121.333°E
Area	920 km²
Established	November 28, 1986

"Taroko" can also refer to the Truku aboriginal tribe.

Taroko National Park (traditional Chinese: 太魯閣國家公園; pinyin: Tàilǔgé gúojiā gōngyuán; Taiwanese POJ: Taroko kok-ka kong-hn̂g) is one of the seven national parks in Taiwan and was named after the Taroko Gorge, the landmark gorge of the park. It spans the counties of Hualien, Taichung, and Nantou on the island of Taiwan.

The park was originally established as the Tsugitaka-Taroko National Park (次高タロコ国立公園 Tsugitaka Taroko kokuritsu kōen) by the Governor-General of Taiwan on December 12, 1937 when Taiwan was part of the Empire of Japan. After the Empire of Japan's defeat in World War II, the Republic of China assumed control of Taiwan. The ROC government subsequently abolished the park on August 15, 1945. It was not until November 28, 1986 that the park was reestablished.

Sights include:

Tunnel of Nine Turns (九曲洞 Jiuqiu Dong, pictured at right)
Eternal Spring Shrine (長春祠 Changchun, pictured below)
Swallow's Mouth (燕子口)
Jinheng Park (靳珩公園)
The Bridge of the Kind Mother (慈母橋)
Tiansiang (天祥)
Jhueilu Precipice (錐麓斷崖)
Lioufang Bridge (流芳橋): 1,666 meters above the riverbed
Hill of Yu the Great (大禹嶺)
Buluo Bay (布洛灣)

[edit] Origin of the name

Map of Taroko national park

The name, Taroko, means the "magnificent and beautiful". Long ago a tribesman of the Truku aboriginal tribe saw the beauty of the azure Pacific when he walked out of the gorge. Astonished by the elegance of the scene, he cried: "Taroko!". And so it became the name of the place, in fashion not dissimilar to how the island, Formosa, got its name.

[edit] Geology

Taroko Gorge and its surrounding area are well known for their abundant supply of marble, leading to its nickname, "The Marble Gorge". The rock now seen in Taroko began over 200 million years ago as sediment on the bottom of the ocean. As the sediment collected, it was subject to increasingly large amounts of pressure which eventually hardened it into limestone. Over the past 100 million years, tectonic compression between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate supplied additional pressure that metamorphosed the limestone into marble. Uplifting forces from the plate collision pushed this rock above the surface of the ocean to where we see it today. In fact, the region is still being uplifted by approximately 0.5cm per year^[1].

The gorge itself was carved into the marble by the erosive power of the Liwu River.

In addition, there are known to be jade in this gorge. This jade is only found in Taiwan and the jade from this area supplies the jade market in Hualien. These mountains can be seen from rafting (a common activity during summer months in Taroko Gorge) through the rivers.

Anyone who has been sightseeing in Taiwan has probably taken in the sights of the most-visited attractions at Taroko National Park such as Yantzukou (燕子口) and Wenshan hot spring (文山溫泉) or taken home a few megabytes of photos of the natural wonders along the Tunnel of Nine Turns Trail (九曲洞步道), Baiyang Trail (白楊步道) or Shakadang Walkway (砂卡礑步道). But the lesser-known Tupido Tribe Trail (塔比多部落步道) in Tienhsiang (天祥), which reveals the history of the Taroko tribe (太魯閣族), is equally enchanting and is worth returning to Taroko to see.

The Tupido Tribe Trail was built by the Batto Bulego family of Taroko some 120 years ago, and now only parts of its ruins remain on the Tianhsyang mesa (天祥台地). Four generations of the family resided there until the Japanese army massacred the tribe and banished the survivors in 1914. ^[2]