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Taroko National Park
IUCN Category II (National Park)
Tunnel of Nine Turns
Location	Taiwan
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 six national parks of Taiwan and was named after the Taroko Gorge, the landmark gorge of the park. It spans cross 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 a colony of the Empire of Japan. After the Empire of Japan's defeat in World War II, the Kuomintang government occupied Taiwan and 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)

Map of Taroko national park

The name, Taroko, means the "magnificent and splendid". Long ago a tribeman 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.

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, compression between the Philippine and Eurasian techtonic plates 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 Mt. 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.

Tunnel of Nine Turns, Taroko National Park

Eternal Spring Shrine, Taroko National Park, Hualien on the east coast. Taken by Kyle Mullaney, 2004

Ksitigarbha (Dizang) statue at the Hsiang-te Temple, in the Taroko Gorge

^  Landform and Geology. Taroko National Park Official Website. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.

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• List of national parks of Taiwan

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Taroko gorge

• Taroko National Park
• Photo galleries of Taroko National Park