Yu Shan or Yushan, also known as Mount Jade, Jade Mountain, or , and known as Mount Niitaka during Japanese rule, is the highest mountain in

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 no ...

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance ( height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''. Th ...

, giving Taiwan the 4th-highest maximum elevation of any island in the world. It is the highest point in the western Pacific region outside of the

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and w ...

. Yushan and its surrounding mountains belong to the

Yushan Range The Yushan Range, formerly the and also known as the JadeMountain Range, is a mountain range in the central-southern region of Taiwan Island. It spans Chiayi County, Kaohsiung City, and Nantou County. It faces the Central Mountain Range on the ...

. The area was once in the ocean; it rose to its current height because of the

Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent an ...

's movement over the

Philippine Sea Plate The Philippine Sea Plate or the Philippine Plate is a tectonic plate comprising oceanic lithosphere that lies beneath the Philippine Sea, to the east of the Philippines. Most segments of the Philippines, including northern Luzon, are part ...

. The mountains are now protected as the

Yushan National Park Yushan National Park () is one of the nine national parks in Taiwan and was named after the summit Yushan, the highest peak of the park.pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

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

of the Chinese name It is also known as , , and ,

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 ...

s of the same name. The name derives from its appearance in the

winter Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultur ...

, when its thick snow cover is thought to make its peak look like stainless

jade Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group ...

. " Yushan" or Jade Mountain was also the name of a location in ancient

Chinese mythology Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology includes many varied myths from regional and cultural traditions. Much of ...

, a paradise said to be the home of the Queen Mother of the West. During the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

, Yushan was known in Chinese as Mugangshan ("Wooded Mountain") from its surrounding forests. Other Chinese names included Batongguan, transcribing its native Tsou name "Patungkuonʉ"; Baiyushan ("White Jade Mountain"); and Xueshan ("Snowy Mountain"). It was previously known in English as . a name sometimes mistakenly thought to honor the

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

Robert Morrison, but actually simply the name of an American captain who sighted it. Other native names for the mountain include Saviah and Tongku Saveq ( Bunun; the latter means "highest peak"), Tanungu'incu ( Kanakanavu), and Kanasian ( Paiwan). During

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

's rule in Taiwan, the mountain became known as or Niitakayama ("New High Mountain") because new surveying showed that it was higher than in the Japanese archipelago.

Geography and geology

Txu-pclmaps-oclc-6550512-niitaka-yama-2217-ii

The island of

is situated at the intersection of two

tectonic plates Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large ...

– the

and the

. Even as “recently” as the late

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ...

(some 250 million years ago), the land here was still but a sedimentary seabed layered with silt and sand. As the two plates began pressing against each other, the land buckled, bent, and created the landscape – 165 mountains higher than above sea level on a relatively small island ( 38th largest in the world). Yushan is also notable in containing the highest point on the

Tropic of Cancer The Tropic of Cancer, which is also referred to as the Northern Tropic, is the most northerly circle of latitude on Earth at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towa ...

and the only point on that circle of latitude where there is any evidence of

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million year ...

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate bet ...

. As recently as seventeen thousand years ago, permanent

ice caps In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets. Description Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features ...

existed throughout Taiwan's highest mountains and extended owing to the wet climate down to ; whereas currently, the nearest glaciers to the Tropic of Cancer are in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

on the Iztaccíhuatl volcano. The ocean waters off Taiwan's east coast are deep; in fact, submarine slopes plunge down to the Pacific Ocean at a grade of 1:10 and the ocean reaches a depth of more than about from the coast.Central Geological Survey, MOEA.

Hiking

With panoramic views, overlapping mountains, and deep, plunging valleys,

Yushan National Park Yushan National Park () is one of the nine national parks in Taiwan and was named after the summit Yushan, the highest peak of the park.Sea of clouds A sea of clouds is an overcast layer of clouds, as viewed from above, with a relatively uniform top which shows undulations of very different lengths resembling waves on the sea. A sea of fog is formed from stratus clouds or fog and does not ...

often fill the valleys. Indisputably, Yushan itself is the focal point of the park. Yushan is one of the favorites among

Taiwanese Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan (Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, r ...

mountain climbers. International peak baggers Yushan is ranked as the 4th World Island Highpoints and the 3rd Asian Island Highpoints. After

Puncak Jaya Puncak Jaya (; literally "Glorious Peak") or Carstensz Pyramid, Mount Jayawijaya or Mount Carstensz () on the island of New Guinea, with an elevation of , is the highest mountain peak of an island on Earth. The mountain is located in the Sudi ...

() in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

and

Mount Kinabalu Mount Kinabalu ( ms, Gunung Kinabalu, Dusun: ''Gayo Ngaran or Nulu Nabalu'') is the highest mountain in Borneo and Malaysia. With an elevation of , it is third-highest peak of an island on Earth, and 20th most prominent mountain in the wor ...

() in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

to form an "Asian Trilogy" hiking experience.Yushan
/ref> Yushan has five main peaks with the Main Peak being the most popular: * Main Peak (玉山主峰), * Eastern Peak (玉山東峰), – from ''Main Peak'' * Northern Peak (玉山北峰), – from ''Wind Tunnel'' (風口) * Southern Peak (玉山南峰), – from ''Paiyun Lodge'' (排雲山莊) * Western Peak (玉山西峰), – from ''Paiyun Lodge'' (排雲山莊) The east, west, north, and south peaks surround the main summit. The east peak rises to a height of and is considered one of Taiwan's ''Ten Major Summits'' (十峻). The south peak is a sharp pinnacle of black

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especiall ...

. The relatively accessible west side of Yushan is covered with thick forests. The north peak is part of a long, gently-rising ridge; this peak consists of two high points that resemble a camel's humps. The North Peak is also home to Taiwan's highest permanently occupied building, the ''Yushan Weather Station'', where the occasional visitors are given a warm welcome. File:YushanSeaCloud.jpg,

Sea of Clouds A sea of clouds is an overcast layer of clouds, as viewed from above, with a relatively uniform top which shows undulations of very different lengths resembling waves on the sea. A sea of fog is formed from stratus clouds or fog and does not ...

at Yushan File:YushanSunRiseSqlHeng.jpg, Sunrise at Yushan File:YushanSeaCloud6.jpg, Sea of Clouds on Yushan Trail

Flora and fauna

Yu-Shan National Park(WDPA-9030)-PeterWen-6

, with the

tropic of Cancer The Tropic of Cancer, which is also referred to as the Northern Tropic, is the most northerly circle of latitude on Earth at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towa ...

across the center of the island, has a climate between tropical and

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical and climate zones to the north and south of the tropics. Geographically part of the temperate zones of both hemispheres, they cover the middle latitudes from to approximately 35° north a ...

. The average temperature is . Here low elevation areas support

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...

broadleaved forests. As elevation increases, evergreen broadleaved forests are gradually replaced by

deciduous forest In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals ...

s and coniferous forests. At mountain peaks with alpine conditions, only

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta ('' sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and ...

es,

liverworts The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of ...

and occasionally grasses can be found on the ground.Flora of China
/ref> All of the above vegetation variations can be seen in the Yushan area from low foothills to high summits with an elevation difference of . Because of this wide climatic and vegetation variations, this environment nurtures the richest and most diversified

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

in Taiwan. Preliminary investigations reveal that there are 130 species of birds, 28 species of

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur ...

s, 17 species of

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates ( lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalia ...

s, 12 species of

amphibian Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbo ...

s and 186 species of

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises ...

Yushan National Park Yushan National Park () is one of the nine national parks in Taiwan and was named after the summit Yushan, the highest peak of the park.ecological systems An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

, a geological museum and an important

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

of one-third of Taiwan's

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

species, such as: * Formosan serow (台灣長鬃山羊) * Reeves's muntjac (台灣山羌) * Formosan black bear (台灣黑熊) * Formosan blue magpie (台灣藍鵲) * Formosan rock macaque (台灣獼猴) * '' Hemimyzon taitungensis'' (台東間爬岩鰍) and ''

Varicorhinus ''Labeobarbus'' is a mid-sized ray-finned fish genus in the family Cyprinidae. Its species are widely distributed throughout eastern Africa and especially southern Africa, but also in Lake Tana in Ethiopia. A common name, in particular for the s ...

tamusuiensis'' (Oshima) – Two unique fish species living in the Lekuleku River area.

History

Under the

, W. Morrison, captain of the American steam freighter ''Alexander'', sighted the mountain while departing from Anping Harbor (present-day Anping,

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and also commonly known as the "Capital City" for its over 200 years of his ...

) in 1857. His log was the first western mention of the mountain, which took his name in European accounts.. It was not possible for European mountaineers to access the mountain at the time due to hostile relations of local aborigines to both Qing authorities and Europeans. Under the Japanese, the anthropologists

Torii Ryūzō Ryuzo Torii (鳥居龍藏; May 4, 1870 – January 14, 1953) was a Japanese anthropologist, ethnologist, archaeologist, and folklorist. Torii traveled across East Asia and South America for his research. He is known for his anthropological res ...

and Ushinosuke Mori became the first people recorded to summit the mountain in 1900. They gave it the name which was used as the name of the Niitaka Arisan National Park in 1937. The

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, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

also used the mountain's name in its "Go" signal''NIITAKAYAMANOBORE 1208 ( anji: '', meaning "Climb Mount Niitaka 1208"to begin the

surprise attack Military deception (MILDEC) is an attempt by a military unit to gain an advantage during warfare by misleading adversary decision makers into taking action or inaction that creates favorable conditions for the deceiving force. This is usually ac ...

against the USN Pacific Fleet and its base at

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, on 7 December 1941 (8 December 208in

Japanese calendar Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the year of the reign of the current Emperor. The written form starts with t ...

). The Yushan weather station on the north peak was finished in 1943. Under the

Republic of China 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 northeas ...

, a large bronze statue of

Yu Youren Yu Youren (); (April 11, 1879 – November 10, 1964) was a Chinese educator, scholar, calligrapher, and politician. Early life He was born on April 11, 1879, in the town of Hedaogang (), Sanyuan County (north of Xi'an), Shaanxi Province, Qing Chi ...

was placed on the Yushan summit in 1966. The statue was cut down and thrown into a ravine by activists for

Taiwan independence 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 northeas ...

in 1996.1
In recent years, Yushan has played an important role in a new focus on Taiwan's identity. Because of its iconic status, Yushan has been chosen to be the background of the newly-issued

NT$ The New Taiwan dollar (code: TWD; symbol: NT$, also abbreviated as NT) is the official currency of Taiwan. The New Taiwan dollar has been the currency of Taiwan since 1949, when it replaced the Old Taiwan dollar, at a rate of 40,000 old dollar ...

1,000 notes on 20 July 2005.Bulletin Board of Central Bank of the Republic of China.
/ref> Similarly, a newly-found asteroid by

Lulin Observatory The Lulin Observatory (, obs. code: D35) is an astronomical observatory operated by the Institute of Astronomy, National Central University in Taiwan. It is located at the summit of Mount Lulin in Xinyi Township, Nantou County. In 2 ...

National Central University National Central University (NCU, ; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: ''Kwet-li̍p Chung-yong Thài-ho̍k'', Wade–Giles: ''Kuo2 Li4 Chung Yang Ta4 Hsüeh2'' or ''中大'', ''Chung-ta'') is a public research university with long-standing traditions based in Taiw ...

was named after Yushan on 28 December 2007.Yushan Asteroid.

Climate

Yushan has an

alpine climate Alpine climate is the typical weather (climate) for elevations above the tree line, where trees fail to grow due to cold. This climate is also referred to as a mountain climate or highland climate. Definition There are multiple definitions o ...

( Köppen ''ETH''). The tip of Yushan is usually covered with frost from November to March. Elevations above may sometimes see snow during the winter months, and there are four consecutive months of snow accumulation at places with elevations higher than . The first snow may appear in October and completely melts by May. Snow falls 24.3 days per year on average on Yushan, and the number is gradually decreasing. Yushan receives around of precipitation annually. It rains an average of 140 days per year, with the greatest frequency between May and August. From May until the first part of June is plum rain season or

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...

season. Taiwan's

typhoon A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

season roughly falls between July and September. The peak month is in August, which sees of precipitation on average, compared to in December, the driest month.

Gallery

File:玉山主峰 (6786349819).jpg, Yushan (玉山) during winter season File:玉山主峰 (6786353517).jpg, Yushan (玉山) during winter season File:DSC04198雄偉的玉山主峰.jpg, Yushan (玉山) during winter season File:玉山主峰 01.jpg, Yushan (玉山) during winter season File:玉山主峰 02.jpg, Yushan (玉山) during winter season File:玉山主峯_海拔3952公尺_單攻.jpg, Yushan Trail signage File:Yushan Taiwan.jpg, Yushan (玉山) File:Laonung River.jpg, Laonung River at the northeastern side of Yushan File:YushanSeaCloud2.jpg, Sea of clouds on Yushan Trail File:YushanSeaCloud3.jpg, Sea of clouds on Yushan Trail File:YushanSeaCoud4.jpg, Sea of clouds on Yushan Trail File:YushanSeaCloud5.jpg, Sea of clouds near ''Tatajia Anbu'' on Yushan Trail File:Yushan(jade mountain) in the morning.jpg, Mountain in the morning File:YushanSunrise.jpg, Sunrise at Yushan File:YushanSunrise1.jpg, Sunrise at Yushan File:YushanSunrise2.jpg, Sunrise at Yushan File:YushanSunrise3.jpg, Sunrise at Yushan File:Yushan(jade mountain) with sun set.jpg, Mountain with sunset File:YushanPeak1.jpg, Hikers at the summit File:FormosanRockMonkey.jpg, Formosan rock macaque found on Yushan Trail File:Yu shan range as seen from Shin Kang mountain (Summer 2005).jpg, Yushan Range, eastern side view File:新高主山與東山.jpg, Yushan on November 1, 1935 File:Mountain Yu.jpg, Painting of Yushan by Nasu Masaki (那須雅城)

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

* . * .

External links

Taiwan Review

Yushan Scenic Beauty

Book on the first ascent (German)

Yushan Main Peak Trail Introduction
{{Authority control Mountains of Taiwan Landforms of Nantou County Highest points of countries