The Fuguijiao or Cape Fugui Lighthouse is a lighthouse on

Cape Fugui Cape Fugui, Cape Fukwei, Fukwei Chiao, Fuguei Cape, or . is a cape located at the northernmost point of the island of Taiwan. It is located in within the Shimen District in New Taipei City. Name ''Fùguì'' is the pinyin romanization of the ...

near Laomei Village in

Shimen District Shimen District (), also known as Sekimon, is a sparsely populated rural district in the northern part of New Taipei City in northern Taiwan. It is part of the North Coast and Guanyinshan National Scenic Area and includes Taiwan's northernmost po ...

New Taipei City New Taipei City is a special municipality located in northern Taiwan. The city is home to an estimated population of 3,974,683 as of 2022, making it the most populous city of Taiwan, and also the second largest special municipality by area, b ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Name

The lighthouse is named after nearby

, the northernmost point of

. Its

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

name was Its

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

name (derived from a

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...

transcription of the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

word ', meaning "hook" or "cape"). is also romanized for the

Chinese Postal Map The history of the postage stamps and postal history of China is complicated by the gradual decay of Imperial China and the years of civil war and Japanese occupation in the 1930s and 1940s. In modern times, postal delivery is handled by Ch ...

, using simplified Wade-Giles, and Fugueijiao from

Tongyong Pinyin Tongyong Pinyin () was the official romanization of Mandarin in Taiwan between 2002 and 2008. The system was unofficially used between 2000 and 2002, when a new romanization system for Taiwan was being evaluated for adoption. Taiwan's Ministry ...

. It was also sometimes known in English as the .

History

A structure was first erected on the rocks at

in 1896 or 1897.. by the occupying Japanese. It was a terminus for

undersea cable Submarine cable is any electrical cable that is laid on the seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the ...

s from the

Japanese islands The Japanese archipelago (Japanese: 日本列島, ''Nihon rettō'') is a group of 6,852 islands that form the country of Japan, as well as the Russian island of Sakhalin. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to the East Chin ...

and its construction materials all came from there. It was ruined during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

but its remains were used by China's Nationalist government for the erection of a octagonal iron lighthouse in 1949.. The foghorn was particularly needful, owing to poor visibility in the area during the fall and winter months. The lighthouse's current concrete black-and-white octagonal tower was raised in 1962.. The height was greatly reduced to improve the reception of the nearby

air force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...

radar station Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, wea ...

. Taiwan's Customs traditionally welcomed visitors to the lighthouse once a year on

Tax Day In the United States, Tax Day is the day on which individual income tax returns are due to be submitted to the federal government. Since 1955, Tax Day has typically fallen on or just after April 15. Tax Day was first introduced in 1913, when t ...

as an open house gesture. After the enthusiastic public response to opening Eluanbi Lighthouse to more general tourism, Taiwan's

Maritime and Port Bureau The Maritime and Port Bureau (MPB; ) is the port authority under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications of the Republic of China (Taiwan) responsible for building a quality environment for the maritime industry, reinforce maritime c ...

decided to open Fuguijiao to regular visitors in 2015.. The first tourists were allowed onto the grounds on September 5, making it the 11th Taiwanese lighthouse opened to the general public.. It remains inaccessible on weekdays because of the radar station. The tower itself remains closed to the public.

Transportation

The lighthouse is located about north of Laomei Village, off Provincial Highway 2.

References

Citations

Bibliography