Yehliu Geopark

Interesting facts

The name Yehliu is thought to come from Spanish sailors, who marked the dangerous cape on their maps as Punto Diablos, the Devil's Cape.

Spanish ships often ran aground on the cape, and the later Dutch also labelled it the Devil's Point on their charts.

3D scans show the Queen's Head's neck shrinking from about 138 cm around in 2005 to under 120 cm by 2023.

The Queen's Head is estimated to be around 4,000 years old, and it draws millions of visitors a year.

The sandstone of the cape belongs to the Miocene Daliao Formation, laid down roughly 10 to 25 million years ago.

The cape is only about 250 metres wide at most, a thin finger of rock reaching out into the sea.

A statue on the shore honours fisherman Lin Tian-jen, who drowned in 1964 trying to save a university student swept off the rocks near the Fairy's Shoe.

Lin had pulled several people from the sea before his death, and his story was taught in Taiwanese primary school textbooks for years.

A red line was later painted across the rocks near the Fairy's Shoe to keep visitors back from the dangerous edge.

Why it is worth it

On Taiwan's north coast, the foothills of the Datun mountains run out into the sea as a narrow cape about 1.7 kilometres long. Seen from above it looks like a turtle slipping into the water, and locals have long called it the Yehliu Turtle. Its fame, though, lies at ground level, on the low rock platforms along its shore, where the sea and the wind have carved the sandstone into a garden of strange sculptures: mushroom-shaped pillars, candles, potholes and slabs cracked into neat blocks like tofu.

The cape is made of layered sandstone rich in lime, laid down in the Miocene sea and later lifted by the collision of tectonic plates that raised the mountains of northern Taiwan. Once exposed, its layers wore away at different speeds. Harder, cemented caps and nodules resisted the waves and spray while the softer rock beneath them was scoured away, leaving top-heavy pedestals perched on slender necks. The ginger rocks owe their knobbly shapes to irregular concretions, the candle rocks to round hard cores set in eroded rings, and the grid of the tofu rocks to joints in the stone widened by the sea. Because erosion never stops, the park is a landscape in motion: the necks get thinner every year.

The most famous of the mushroom rocks is the Queen's Head, whose profile and swept-up "hairstyle" reminded visitors of a portrait of Elizabeth I. It has become the emblem of the park, and its slow thinning is watched closely; a younger, ponytailed formation nicknamed the Cute Princess is presented as its successor. Other named rocks include the Fairy's Shoe, the Dragon's Head, the Gorilla, Peanut Rock and the Pearl. The geopark is divided into three sections: the first is crowded with mushroom and candle rocks, the second, closer to the sea, holds the Queen's Head and the most famous shapes, and the third, at the far end of the cape, is a wilder area of wave-cut platforms and sea caves. A statue on the cape honours a local man who lost his life saving another from the sea.

Come early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when the low sun brings out the yellow and ochre banding of the rock and the crowds thin out, and walk to the far end of the cape for the sense of open ocean that the busy first section lacks.

Getting there

Yehliu Geopark is in Wanli District, New Taipei City, about 10 km from Keelung. The nearest airport is Taipei Songshan (TSA), about 22 km away; the main international gateway, Taiwan Taoyuan (TPE), is about 50 km away in a straight line. Keelung Bus 790 runs from Keelung station to Yehliu, and several bus routes connect Taipei with the Yehliu Geopark stop, including the Kuo-Kuang 1815 from Taipei Main Station. The park opens daily from 8:00 to 17:00, with a visitor centre and parking.

From the encyclopaedia

Yehliu, also referred to as Yehliu Promontory, is a cape, headland, and promontory in Wanli District, New Taipei, Taiwan. It forms part of the Daliao Miocene Formation and stretches approximately 1,700 metres (5,600 ft) into the ocean. It was formed six million years ago, after the collision of the Philippine Sea plate and Eurasian plate; tectonics then pushed the Datun Mountains out of the sea. Strong ocean waves crashed against the soft sedimentary rock and softer layers wore away faster than harder ones. This uneven wear created top-heavy hoodoo stones. These are visible at the Yehliu Geopark in the North Coast and Guanyinshan National Scenic Area.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Yehliu Geopark

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia