Luodong Township (), sometimes spelled Lotung or Lotong, is an urban township in the central part of Yilan County,

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. Luodong is the smallest township in the county by area.

Toponym

Its name and former name () derive from the Kavalan word '' rutung'', meaning "

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

", referring to a large population of monkeys there half century ago.

History

Qing dynasty

Luodong Township Aerial Panorama facing the coast

Luodong Township Aerial Panorama facing the mountains

In 1804, Pingpu tribe chiefs Pan Xian Wen and Maoge from

Changhua Changhua (Hokkien Pe̍h-ōe-jī, POJ: ''Chiong-hòa'' or ''Chiang-hòa''), officially known as Changhua City, is a county-administered city and the county seat of Changhua County in Taiwan. For many centuries the site was home to a settlement of ...

led a group of people to settle in the Luodong area, where they established Alishih and Ashushih communities and developed agriculture on a large scale. In 1812,

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

officer Fan Bang Gan was assigned to Luodong. Two years later, Han settlers entered the region to begin clearing and developing the area. The Pingpu tribe and Han settlers fought over land ownership but eventually they ended up working together to develop Luodong. Years later, Luodong became a developed region with a combination of aboriginal and Han cultures.

Japanese Empire

Under Japanese rule, Luodong was developed into the base for industries established by the Taiping Mountain logging business. In 1916, the Japanese government established the Giran Branch Office of the Forest Administration Bureau in charge of logging, transportation and storage of Taiping Mountain area timber with a log pond set up in today's Yuanshan Township. The branch office was then later on moved to Luodong due to the change in the lumber transportation from waterway to railway. Finally in 1924, upon the completion of railway connecting Luodong and ''Tuchang'' (土場 in

Datong Datong is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi Province, China. It is located in the Datong Basin at an elevation of and borders Inner Mongolia to the north and west and Hebei to the east. As of the 2020 census, it had a population o ...

), the branch office was officially moved to . From that moment onward, Luodong became a commercial center. From 1920 to 1945, Lutung was administrated as of

Taihoku Prefecture Taihoku Prefecture (臺北州; ''Taihoku-shū'') was an administrative division of Taiwan created in 1920, during Japanese rule. The prefecture consisted of modern-day Keelung, New Taipei City, Taipei and Yilan County. Its government office, ...

Geography

Luodong is located on

Lanyang Plain Yilan Plain (), also called the Lanyang Plain (), or historically Kabalan (), Kapsulan (), Komalan (), is a plain in Yilan County, Taiwan. The plain has an alluvial fan which formed by Lanyang River. The plain was formed in the shape of nearly ...

. It covers an area of and as of September 2023 had a population of 70,002 people. It has a large, landscaped sports park.

Administrative divisions

Luodong Township consists of 25 villages and 524 neighborhoods. Villages in the township are Kaiming, Daxin, Tungan, Xinqun, Luozhuang, Nanchang, Nanhao, Chenggong, Rende, Renhe, Zhongshan, Hanmin, Weiyang, Xian, Beicheng, Guohua, Xianwen, Gongzheng, Jixiang, Xinyi, Shulin, Zhulin and Renai Village.

Tourist attractions

Luodong has a large night market - Luodong Night Market - containing many varieties of

local food Local food is food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, often accompanied by a social structure and supply chain different from the large-scale supermarket Food system, system. Local food (or locavore) movements ...

, such as scallion pancakes. Luodong has a large community which organizes dance clubs and recitals for the elderly. It is also the home of the locally famous Meihua Lake. Luodong has an excellent natural environment, and is close to both urban Yilan and Su'ao township, popular for its cold and hot springs. It is popular as a destination in the summer for its proximity to the Yilan Children's Festival as well as the farms of Sanxing township. People visit Luodong year-round to enjoy its charming bed and breakfasts.

Luodong Forestry Culture Park The Luodong Forestry Culture Park () is a park in Luodong Township, Yilan County, Taiwan. History In 1905, the original site of the park became a major timber production area of the Luodong Branch of the Taiping Forest Area, drawn by the Fo ...

is a former timber processing plant that was equipped with sawmills, lumber yards, an agency office, and workers' dormitories. The park still has a complete set of old industry facilities, early village buildings, storage units, and transport machinery. Another park in the township is Luodong Sports Park. Festivals in the township include the Luodong Arts Festival Fringe.

Transportation

Rail

Luodong is served by the Yilan Line of Taiwan Railways at Luodong Station.

Road

The main bus station in the township is Luodong Transfer Station. There are two interchanges in Luodong township along National Highway 5.

Notable natives

* Chen Chin-te, acting Magistrate of Yilan County (2017–2018) *

Huang Chun-ming Huang Chun-ming (; born 13 February 1935) is a Taiwanese literary figure and teacher. Huang writes mainly about the tragic and sometimes humorous lives of ordinary Taiwanese people, and many of his short stories have been turned into films, in ...

, novelist and writer * Lin Mei-hsiu, actress and television host * Lin Tsung-hsien, Minister of

Council of Agriculture The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA; ) of Taiwan, formerly the Council of Agriculture, is the ministry under the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in charged with overseeing affairs related to agriculture, forestry, fishery, animal hu ...

(2017–2018) * Lin Zi-miao, Magistrate of Yilan County * Ran In-ting, watercolor artist * Jimmy Liao, illustrator * Doris Yeh, bassist of

Chthonic In Greek mythology, deities referred to as chthonic () or chthonian () were gods or spirits who inhabited the underworld or existed in or under the earth, and were typically associated with death or fertility. The terms "chthonic" and "chthonian" ...

Janez Janež Janez Janež (pronounced ; January 14, 1913 – October 11, 1990) was a Slovene medical doctor and surgeon who worked for most of his life in mainland China and Taiwan. In Chinese he is known as Fan Fenglong () or simply Doctor Fan (). He was ...

medical doctor A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis ...

and

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

In Chinese is doctor Janez Janež known as ''Fan Fenglong'' () or simply ''Doctor Fan'' ()

Sister cities

Saito, Miyazaki is a city located in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 28,538 in 13964 households, and a population density of 65 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Saito is the 5th largest city in t ...

, Japan

References

External links

* {{Coord, 24, 40, 31, N, 121, 46, 16, E, region:TW_type:city, display=title Townships in Yilan County, Taiwan Taiwan placenames originating from Formosan languages