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Yu Shan or Yushan, also known as Mount Jade, Jade Mountain, Tongku Saveq or Mount Niitaka during Japanese rule, is the highest mountain in Taiwan at above sea level, 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. Yushan and its surrounding mountains belong to the Yushan Range. The area was once in the ocean; it rose to its current height because of the Eurasian Plate's movement over the Philippine Sea Plate. Yushan is ranked 40th by topographic isolation.
The mountains are now protected as the Yushan National Park. The national park is Taiwan's largest, highest, and least accessible national park. It contains the largest tract of wilderness remaining on the island.
During the Qing Taiwan, Yushan was known in Chinese as Mugangshan ("Wooded Mountain") from its surrounding forests. Other Chinese names included Batongguan, transcribing its native Tsou language 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 Robert Morrison, but simply the name of an American captain who sighted it.
Other native names for the mountain include Saviah and Tongku Saveq (Bunun language; the latter means "highest peak" or "sheltering peak" (2025). 9781316512166, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781316512166), Tanungu'incu (Kanakanavu), and Kanasian (Paiwan language).
During Imperial Japan's Japanese Taiwan, the mountain became known as or Niitakayama ("New High Mountain") because new surveying showed that it was higher than in the Japanese archipelago.
Yushan is also notable in containing the highest point on the Tropic of Cancer and the only point on that circle of latitude where there is any evidence of Quaternary glaciation. Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene Glacial Landforms of Yushan Area, Taiwan As recently as seventeen thousand years ago, permanent glacier 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 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.
Yushan is one of the favorites among Taiwanese people mountain climbers. For international Peak bagging, Yushan is ranked as the 4th World Island Highpoints and the 3rd Asian Island Highpoints. Some hikers combine trips to Puncak Jaya () in Indonesia and Mount Kinabalu () in Malaysia to create an "Asian Trilogy". Yushan
Yushan has five main peaks:
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. 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 visitors are sometimes welcomed.
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 these wide climatic and vegetation variations, this environment nurtures the richest and most diversified wildlife in Taiwan. Preliminary investigations reveal that there are 130 species of birds, 28 species of , 17 species of , 12 species of , and 186 species of butterfly in Yushan National Park. In fact, Yushan is nicknamed "the ark" by academics who see it as a repository of Taiwan's rare species. It is almost an encyclopedia of Taiwan's ecological systems, a geological museum and an important habitat of one-third of Taiwan's endemism species, such as:
Under Japanese Taiwan, the anthropologists Torii Ryūzō 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 also used the mountain's name in its "Go" signal NIITAKAYAMANOBORE 1208 (ニイタカヤマノボレ一二○八 Kanji:), meaning "Climb Mount Niitaka 1208"to begin the surprise attack against the USN Pacific Fleet and its base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941 (8 December 1208 in Japanese calendar).
The Yushan weather station on the north peak was finished in 1943.
Under the Republic of China, a large bronze statue of Yu Youren was placed on the Yushan summit in 1966. The statue was cut down and thrown into a ravine by activists for Taiwan independence 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$1,000 notes on 20 July 2005. Bulletin Board of Central Bank of the Republic of China. Similarly, an asteroid discovered by National Central University's Lulin Observatory on 28 December 2007 was named "" in honor of the mountain. Yushan Asteroid.
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