New Taipei City’s Yehliu Geopark is nature’s sculpture park.
Yehliu Geopark is a tiny peninsula on Taiwan’s north coast in New Taipei City’s Wanli District. Its strange and surprising rock formations have brought it fame as a must-visit destination for visitors from home and abroad.
The constant ocean spray, offshore winds and exposure to the weather have eroded the coastal geology into a variety of protrusions and concavities. The formations are named for the images they conjure, the most famous and startling being the Queen’s Head, which closely resembles the famous bust of the ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. More prosaic shapes are candles, mushrooms, honeycombs and peanuts. The colors of the rock strata and structures uncovered by time and tides are incredibly varied for such a small area. As CNN put it, “This is the closest you’ll get to Mars on Earth.”
The extraterrestrial landscape was first catapulted to fame by photographers in the early 1960s and quickly became a popular destination as the images were shared. Statistics from the local city government show that pre-pandemic visitor numbers reached 3 million annually.
Visitor numbers dropped 90 percent over the period of pandemic control measures, but with restrictions lifted, now is a good time for tourists to seek out the otherworldly landscape. With the formations eroding very slightly year by year, each image snapped will be a unique view.
—by Jim Hwang
The park is home to a wide variety of geological forms from the Queen’s Head to Peanut Rock.
Yehliu was made famous in the early 1960s with the rise of photography and is still a favorite tourist destination.
Candle rocks
Honeycomb rocks
As pandemic control measures are removed, Yehliu is again welcoming tourists from around
the globe.