Taiwan is planning to open two more lighthouses to the public since such structures have become major tourist attractions in the country, the Maritime and Port Bureau said on Saturday.
The bureau said that by the end of the year, Qimeiyu Lighthouse (七美嶼燈塔) on Penghu and Fuguijiao Lighthouse (富貴角燈塔) in New Taipei City would be added to the list of lighthouse tourist attractions.
Taiwan has 35 lighthouses, 10 of which are currently open to visitors. The most recent additions to the list of lighthouse tourist sites are Paishachia (白沙岬), Ludao (綠島), Fangyuan (芳苑) and Gaomei (高美) lighthouses, which were opened to the public over the past two years.
The nation’s lighthouses serve not only as facilities to protect fishing boats and improve security, but also as scenic sites that boost Taiwan’s tourism, said the bureau, which is run by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
Prior to 2013, visitors were allowed into only six of the nation’s lighthouses: facilities in Pingtung County’s Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), New Taipei City’s Cape San Diego (三貂角), Kaohsiung’s Cijin (旗津), Penghu County’s Yuweng Island (漁翁島) and Dongju Island (東吉嶼) and Matsu County’s Dongyin Island (東引島).
The bureau said that due to the rise in the number of visitors to the 10 lighthouses open to the public, the government has decided to open two more lighthouses.
Qimeiyu and Fuguijiao lighthouses would be renovated and their environs upgraded to accommodate tourists, according to the bureau.
The work would include the installation of drink vending machines inside the lighthouses and the construction of public toilets at the sites, the bureau said. It said that once the number of visitors reaches a certain level, it would consider adding dining facilities.
Last year, more than 1 million people visited Taiwan’s 10 tourism lighthouses, compared with about 880,000 in 2013, according to government statistics.
Oluanpi Lighthouse in southern Taiwan has been the most popular, with the number of daily visitors averaging 1,000, many of them Chinese tourists, the bureau said.
The lighthouse, which was built more than 130 years ago during the Qing Dynasty, is surrounded by moats that were designed to prevent invasions by Aboriginal people.
In 2013, the Maritime and Port Bureau took over the management of the nation’s lighthouses from the Ministry of Finance.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS