Green Island, also known by other names, is a small

volcanic island Geologically, a volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term high island can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

about off the eastern coast of the main island of Taiwan. It is at high tide and at low tide, making it the seventh-largest island in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. The island is administered as , a rural township of

Taitung County Taitung () is the third largest county in Taiwan, located primarily on the island's southeastern coast and also including Green Island, Orchid Island and Lesser Orchid Island. The seat is located in Taitung City. Name While its name means "East ...

and one of the county's two insular townships (the other being Lanyu Township). The island once served as a

penal colony A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer ...

for political prisoners during Taiwan's period of martial law, although today it is primarily known as a tourist hotspot.

Names

The island was known as Sama-Sana, Samasana and as in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a transcription of its Amis name ''Sanasai''. The name "Green Island" is a

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...

of the island's

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

name, written . It is also known as Lyudao, Lüdao or from the

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...

of the name's

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

pronunciation; as from its Wade-Giles romanization; and as from its

Hokkien Hokkien ( , ) is a Varieties of Chinese, variety of the Southern Min group of Chinese language, Chinese languages. Native to and originating from the Minnan region in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern China, it is also referred ...

pronunciation. The name was adopted by the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

on August 1, 1949, at the behest of Huang Shih-hung , the magistrate of Taitung. Before that, it was usually known as (or Huoshao), a calque of its original Chinese name ''Huǒshāo Dǎo''

History

The island was originally inhabited by the aboriginal

Amis people The Amis (; ), also known as the Pangcah (which means 'people' and 'kinsmen'), are an indigenous Austronesian ethnic group native to Taiwan. They speak the Amis language (; ), an Austronesian language, and are one of the sixteen officially ...

. In March 1864 the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square rig, square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the l ...

''Susan Douglas'' was swept off course and wrecked on the island. Her captain then sailed by

junk Junk may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Junk'' (film), a 2000 Japanese horror film * '' J-U-N-K'', a 1920 American film * ''Junk'' (novel), by Melvin Burgess, 1996 * ''Junk'', a novel by Christopher Largen * '' Junk: Record of the Last ...

from the island to

Kaohsiung Kaohsiung, officially Kaohsiung City, is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Kaohsiung City has a population of approximately 2.73 million p ...

, and the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

gunboat HMS ''Bustard'' found and rescued the remainder of the survivors. In the early 1870s, William Campbell saw the island from aboard the ''Daphne'', and wrote: On 11 December 1937 the Dollar Steamship Company luxury

ocean liner An ocean liner is a type of passenger ship primarily used for transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships). The ...

ran aground in a

typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

on a reef at Zhongliao Bay. All 503 passengers and 330 crew survived and were safely brought ashore. Over the next few days the

cargo liner A cargo liner, also known as a passenger-cargo ship or passenger-cargoman, is a type of merchant ship which carries general cargo and often passengers. They became common just after the middle of the 19th century, and eventually gave way to conta ...

s SS ''President McKinley'' and SS ''President Pierce'' took the survivors off the island, helped by boats provided by the and an

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, Potsdam Declaration, when it was dissolved followin ...

destroyer. Dollar Lines sold ''President Hoover''s wreck to a Japanese salvage company, which spent the next three years breaking her up ''in situ''. In response to the wreck, members of the US public gave money through the

American Red Cross The American National Red Cross is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Humanitarianism, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. Clara Barton founded ...

for a lighthouse to be built near Zhongliao village. Lyudao or Lüdao Lighthouse was designed by Japanese engineers, built by local islanders in 1938 and is high. A shipwreck of Dutch origin dating to the 19th century was found in June 2013.

Prisons

Green Island first served as an isolated spot and place of

exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

for

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

s during the

martial law Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...

period during the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was the one party state, sole ruling party of the country Republic of China (1912-1949), during its rule from 1927 to 1949 in Mainland China until Retreat ...

government, and especially in the

White Terror White Terror may refer to: Events France * First White Terror (1794–1795), a movement against the Jacobins in the French Revolution * Second White Terror (1815), a movement against the French Revolution Post-Russian Empire * White Terror (Rus ...

. After their release, many of the prisoners jailed between the late 1940s and the late 1980s went on to establish the

Democratic Progressive Party The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a centre to centre-left Taiwanese nationalist political party in Taiwan. As the dominant party in the Pan-Green Coalition, one of the two main political camps in Taiwan, the DPP is currently the ...

, most notably

Shih Ming-teh Shih Ming-teh (; 15 January 1941 – 15 January 2024), commonly known as Nori Shih, was a Taiwanese statesman and human rights defender. He was once a political prisoner for 25-and-a-half years. Arrested at the age of 21 in 1962 and charged w ...

. Writer and political dissident

Bo Yang Bo Yang ( zh , t = 柏楊 , s = 柏杨 , p = Bó Yáng ; 7 March 1920 – 29 April 2008), sometimes also erroneously called Bai Yang, was a Chinese people, Chinese historian, novelist, philosopher, poet based in Taiwan. He is also regarded as a ...

served his prison terms there. During the 1950s, while

National Taiwan University Hospital The National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH; ) is a medical facility located in the Zhongzheng District of Taipei, Taiwan. It started operations under Japanese rule in Daitōtei (today's Dadaocheng) on 18 June 1895, and moved to its present ...

physicians , , and were held at Green Island, they established a clinic alongside others who had medical training, including , to treat other inmates, prison guards, and Green Island residents. As prisoners with medical backgrounds were released, the clinic shrank, then closed in 1960 with the departure of Hu Hsin-lin. The place where most of the political prisoners (such as Shih Ming-teh) were held was "Green Island Lodge" (

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

: ''Lǜ Dǎo Shānzhuāng''). "Oasis Village" was the main penal colony. The prison was later closed, and its interior is now open to the public. "Green Island Prison" (Pinyin: ''Lǜdǎo Jiānyù'') is also on the island and has housed prisoners considered to be among Taiwan's most dangerous criminals and gangsters. However, this has changed in recent years.

Geography

The island is formed of

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

tholeiite The tholeiitic magma series () is one of two main magma series in subalkaline igneous rocks, the other being the Calc-alkaline magma series, calc-alkaline series. A magma series is a chemically distinct range of magma compositions that describes ...

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomina ...

, and volcanic explosive fragments with an area of 15 km². The volcano erupted from the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

epochs and is part of the

Luzon Volcanic Arc The Luzon Volcanic Arc is a volcanic arc, chain of volcanoes in a north–south line across the Luzon Strait from Taiwan to Luzon. The name "Luzon Volcanic Arc" was first proposed by Carl Bowin et al. to describe a series of Miocene to recent vo ...

. Magma was formed by

subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at the convergent boundaries between tectonic plates. Where one tectonic plate converges with a second p ...

oceanic crust Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramaf ...

at a depth of about . The andesite rock contains some visible crystals of

pyroxene The pyroxenes (commonly abbreviated Px) are a group of important rock-forming inosilicate minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks. Pyroxenes have the general formula , where X represents ions of calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), iron ( ...

amphibole Amphibole ( ) is a group of inosilicate minerals, forming prism or needlelike crystals, composed of double chain tetrahedra, linked at the vertices and generally containing ions of iron and/or magnesium in their structures. Its IMA symbol is ...

. The

geochemistry Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the e ...

of the rock shows it is enriched in

potassium Potassium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol K (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number19. It is a silvery white metal that is soft enough to easily cut with a knife. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmospheric oxygen to ...

strontium Strontium is a chemical element; it has symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, it is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive. The metal forms a dark oxide layer when it is exposed to ...

and

rubidium Rubidium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Rb and atomic number 37. It is a very soft, whitish-grey solid in the alkali metal group, similar to potassium and caesium. Rubidium is the first alkali metal in the group to have ...

and light rare earth elements. Chromium and nickel are depleted.

Fauna

The island is a habitat for

Formosan sika deer The Formosan sika deer (''Cervus nippon taiouanus'') is a subspecies of sika deer endemic to the island of Taiwan. Formosan sika, like most of the terrestrial fauna and flora of Taiwan, arrived on the island during Pleistocene glacial periods whe ...

Reeves's muntjac Reeves's muntjac (''Muntiacus reevesi''), also known as the Chinese muntjac, is a species of muntjac found widely in south-eastern China (from Gansu to Yunnan) and Taiwan. It has also been introduced in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherla ...

Ryukyu flying fox The Ryukyu flying fox or Ryukyu fruit bat (''Pteropus dasymallus'') is a species of megabat in the family Pteropodidae. It is found in Japan, Taiwan, and the Batanes and Babuyan Islands of the Philippines. Its natural habitats are subtropical o ...

es, and resident and migratory birds.

Local population

In 1995 fewer than half of the registered 2,634 residents of the island actually lived on the island. The population is dwindling due to the difficulty of finding jobs on the island. The island has two pre-schools, one kindergarten, two elementary schools and one middle school. To pursue any education at the senior high school level or above, islanders must move to the main island of Taiwan. Public service centres include one seniors' home, one library, and one community centre. The villages and the settlements (聚落) they administer are: * Zhongliao Village (中寮村) ** Zhongliao * Nanliao Village (南寮村) ** Nanliao (南寮) ** Yugang (漁港) * Gongguan Village (公館村) ** Gongguan (公館) ** Chaikou (柴口) ** Liumagou (流麻溝) ** Dahu (大湖) ** Zuoping (左坪) The following abandoned aboriginal tribal settlements also belong to Gongguan Village: * Youzihu (柚子湖) * Nanzihu (楠子湖) * Haishenping (海參坪) * Dabaisha (大白沙)

Power generation

The island is powered by its only diesel-fired power plant with a capacity of 29.1 MW, consisting of 28 units of generation.

Tourist attractions

* Green Island Human Rights Culture Park * Lüdao Lighthouse * Green Island Dive Sites Recreational diving is popular for visitors. There are many dive sites that are established with walkways down to ocean About 150 meter Off Shilang, lies the biggest reef attraction 'Big Mushroom Coral' its height about 12m, width around 31m. * Sika Deer Ecological Park * Sleeping Beauty Rock * Zhaori Hot Spring Sea water heated from the volcanic action rises to the surface next to coral reefs at 53 °C and pH7.5.

Transportation

Control tower and terminal at Lyudao Airport

Lüdao Airport Green Island Airport () is an airport serving Lüdao, in Taitung County, Taiwan (ROC). History The airport was built in 1972, and was under the control of the Taiwan Garrison Command. It was rebuilt in 1977, and is now under control of the Ci ...

provides flights to

Taitung Airport Taitung Airport () is an airport serving Taitung City, in Taitung County, Taiwan. from DAFIF (effective October 2006) The airport operates from 7am to 6pm. History The airport sits on 153.7 hectares of land and began as a holding room facility ...

Taitung City Taitung City () is a county-administered city and the county seat of Taitung County, Taiwan. It lies on the southeast coast of Taiwan facing the Pacific Ocean. Taitung City is the most populous subdivision of Taitung County and it is one of the ...

. There are also

ferries A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus. ...

travelling from Nanliao Harbor to

Fugang Fishery Harbor The Fugang Fishery Harbor () is a harbor in Taitung City, Taitung County, Taiwan. Geography The harbor is located at Beinan Creek. Economy The harbor is the portal for sea fishing and acts as a tourist fish market. Destinations Through its jet ...

in Taitung City.

Books

Green island is a subject in the following book:
''Green Island, a novel'' (Knopf, 2016)
by Shawna Yang Ryan

References

Citations

Bibliography

* .

External links

Tourism
(Chinese)
Book Trips to Green Island here!
(English) {{Authority control Islands of Taiwan Townships in Taitung County Landforms of Taitung County Prison islands