Green Island, also known by other names, is a small

volcanic island Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

about off the eastern coast of

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

. It is at high tide and at low tide, making it the seventh-largest island in

Taiwan Area The free area of the Republic of China, also known as the "Taiwan Area of the Republic of China", "Tai-Min Area (Taiwan and Fujian)" or simply the "Taiwan Area", is a term used by the government of the Republic of China (ROC) to refer to ...

. The island is administered as , a rural township of

Taitung County Taitung County (; Mandarin pinyin: ''Táidōng Xiàn''; Hokkien POJ: ''Tâi-tang-koān''; Hakka PFS: ''Thòi-tûng-yen''; Paiwan: ''Valangaw'';lit:Eastern part of Taiwan) is the third largest county in Taiwan, located primarily on the island ...

and one of the county's two offshore areas (the other being

Orchid Island Orchid Island, also known by other names, is a volcanic island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan Island. The island is part of Taiwan. It is separated from the Batanes of the Philippines by the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait. It is g ...

). The island once served as a

penal colony A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer to ...

for political prisoners during Taiwan's period of martial law, although today it is primarily known as a tourist hotspot.

Names

The island was known as Sama-Sana, Samasana and as in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a transcription of its Amis name ''Sanasai''. The name "Green Island" is a

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...

of the island's Chinese name, written in

traditional characters Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took a ...

. It is also known as Lyudao, Lüdao or from the

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...

of the name's Mandarin pronunciation; as from its Wade-Giles romanization; and as from its

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages ...

pronunciation. The name was adopted by the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...

on August 1, 1949, at the behest of Huang Shih-hung , the magistrate of Taitung. Before that, it was usually known as (or Huoshao), a calque of its original Chinese name ''Huǒshāo Dǎo''

History

The island was originally inhabited by the aboriginal

Amis people The Amis ( ami, Amis, Ami, Pangcah; ), also known as the Pangcah, are an indigenous Austronesian ethnic group native to Taiwan. They speak the Amis language (; ), an Austronesian language, and are one of the sixteen officially recognized Ta ...

. In March 1864 the British

brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the latter part ...

''Susan Douglas'' was swept off course and wrecked on the island. Her captain then sailed by junk from the island to

Kaohsiung Kaohsiung City ( Mandarin Chinese: ; Wade–Giles: ''Kao¹-hsiung²;'' Pinyin: ''Gāoxióng'') is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Ka ...

, and the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

gunboat HMS ''Bustard'' found and rescued the remainder of the survivors. In the early 1870s, William Campbell saw the island from aboard the ''Daphne'', and wrote: On 11 December 1937 the

Dollar Steamship Company APL, formerly called American President Lines Ltd., is an American container shipping company that is a subsidiary of French shipping company CMA CGM. It operates an all-container ship fleet, including 9 U.S. flagged container vessels. In 1938, ...

luxury

ocean liner An ocean liner is a passenger ship primarily used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships). Ca ...

ran aground in a

typhoon A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

on a reef at Zhongliao Bay. All 503 passengers and 330 crew survived and were safely brought ashore. Over the next few days the

cargo liner A cargo liner, also known as a passenger-cargo ship or passenger-cargoman, is a type of merchant ship which carries general cargo and often passengers. They became common just after the middle of the 19th century, and eventually gave way to conta ...

s SS ''President McKinley'' and SS ''President Pierce'' took the survivors off the island, helped by boats provided by the and an

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

destroyer. Dollar Lines sold ''President Hoover''s wreck to a Japanese salvage company, which spent the next three years breaking her up ''in situ''. In response to the wreck, members of the US public gave money through the

American Red Cross The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the des ...

for a lighthouse to be built near Zhongliao village. Lyudao or Lüdao Lighthouse was designed by Japanese engineers, built by local islanders in 1938 and is high. A shipwreck of Dutch origin dating to the 19th century was found in June 2013.

Prisons

Green Island first served as an isolated spot and place of

exile Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

for

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although nu ...

s during the

martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Martia ...

period during the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Ta ...

government, and especially in the White Terror. After their release, many of the prisoners jailed between the late 1940s and the late 1980s went on to establish the

Democratic Progressive Party The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a Taiwanese nationalist and centre-left political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). Controlling both the Republic of China presidency and the unicameral Legislative Yuan, it is the majorit ...

, most notably Shih Ming-teh. Writer and political dissident

Bo Yang Bo Yang (; 7 March 1920 – 29 April 2008), sometimes also erroneously called Bai Yang, was a Chinese historian, novelist, philosopher, poet, and politician based in Taiwan. He is also regarded as a social critic. According to his own memoir, ...

served his prison terms there. The place where most of the political prisoners (such as Shih Ming-teh) were held was "Green Island Lodge" (''Lǜ Dǎo Shānzhuāng''). "Oasis Village" was the main penal colony. The prison was later closed, and its interior is now open to the public. "Green Island Prison" (''Lǜdǎo Jiānyù'') is also on the island and has housed prisoners considered to be among Taiwan's most dangerous criminals and gangsters. However, this has changed in recent years.

Geography

The island is formed of

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plat ...

tholeiite The tholeiitic magma series is one of two main magma series in subalkaline igneous rocks, the other being the calc-alkaline series. A magma series is a chemically distinct range of magma compositions that describes the evolution of a mafic magma ...

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predo ...

, and volcanic explosive fragments with an area of 15 km². The volcano erupted from the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

epochs and is part of the Luzon Volcanic Arc. Magma was formed by

subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, ...

oceanic crust Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafic ...

at a depth of about . The andesite rock contains some visible crystals of

pyroxene The pyroxenes (commonly abbreviated to ''Px'') are a group of important rock-forming inosilicate minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks. Pyroxenes have the general formula , where X represents calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), iron (Fe I ...

amphibole Amphibole () is a group of inosilicate minerals, forming prism or needlelike crystals, composed of double chain tetrahedra, linked at the vertices and generally containing ions of iron and/or magnesium in their structures. Its IMA symbol is ...

. The

geochemistry Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing th ...

of the rock shows it is enriched in

potassium Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin '' kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmos ...

strontium Strontium is the chemical element with the symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, strontium is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive. The metal forms a dark oxide layer when it is e ...

and

rubidium Rubidium is the chemical element with the symbol Rb and atomic number 37. It is a very soft, whitish-grey solid in the alkali metal group, similar to potassium and caesium. Rubidium is the first alkali metal in the group to have a density higher ...

and light rare earth elements. Chromium and nickel are depleted.

Fauna

The island is a habitat for

Formosan sika deer The Formosan sika deer () (''Cervus nippon taiouanus'') is a subspecies of sika deer endemic to the island of Taiwan. Formosan sika, like most of the terrestrial fauna and flora of Taiwan, arrived on the island during Pleistocene glacial periods ...

, Reeves's muntjacs, Ryukyu flying foxes, and resident and migratory birds.

Local population

In 1995 fewer than half of the registered 2,634 residents of the island actually lived on the island. The population is dwindling due to the difficulty of finding jobs on the island. The island has two pre-schools, one kindergarten, two elementary schools and one middle school. To pursue any education at the senior high school level or above, islanders must move to the main island of Taiwan. Public service centres include one seniors' home, one library, and one community centre. The villages and the settlements (聚落) they administer are: * Zhongliao Village (中寮村) ** Zhongliao * Nanliao Village (南寮村) ** Nanliao (南寮) ** Yugang (漁港) * Gongguan Village (公館村) ** Gongguan (公館) ** Chaikou (柴口) ** Liumagou (流麻溝) ** Dahu (大湖) ** Zuoping (左坪) The following abandoned aboriginal tribal settlements also belong to Gongguan Village: * Youzihu (柚子湖) * Nanzihu (楠子湖) * Haishenping (海參坪) * Dabaisha (大白沙)

Power generation

The island is powered by its only diesel-fired power plant with a capacity of 29.1 MW, consisting of 28 units of generation.

Tourist attractions

* Green Island Human Rights Culture Park * Lüdao Lighthouse * Green Island Dive Sites Recreational diving is popular for visitors. There are many dive sites that are established with walkways down to ocean About 150 meter Off Shilang, lies the biggest reef attraction 'Big Mushroom Coral' its height about 12m, width around 31m. * Sika Deer Ecological Park * Sleeping Beauty Rock * Zhaori Hot Spring Sea water heated from the volcanic action rises to the surface next to coral reefs at 53℃ and pH7.5.

Transportation

Control tower and terminal at Lyudao Airport

Lüdao Airport provides flights to

Taitung Airport Taitung Airport () is an airport serving Taitung City, in Taitung County, Taiwan.Airport i ...

Taitung City Taitung City () is a county-administered city and the county seat of Taitung County, Taiwan. It lies on the southeast coast of Taiwan facing the Pacific Ocean. Taitung City is the most populous subdivision of Taitung County and it is one of th ...

. There are also ferries travelling from

Nanliao Harbor The Hsinchu Fish Harbor () or Nanliao Harbor () is a fishing port in North District, Hsinchu City, Taiwan. History The harbor was originally built in the 1980s to give conveniences to the local fishermen to catch fishes. However, due to the d ...

to Fugang Fishery Harbor in Taitung City.

Books

Green island is a subject in the following book: *
Green Island, a novel (Knopf 2016)
' by Shawna Yang Ryan.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* .

External links

Tourism
(Chinese)
Book Trips to Green Island here!
(English) {{Authority control Islands of Taiwan Townships in Taitung County Landforms of Taitung County