Orchid Island 蘭嶼

About Orchid Island

Traditional plank boats and partly sunken houses reflect this relationship with the coastal environment. These are living cultural possessions and homes, so community-led interpretation is more useful than treating villages as unrestricted exhibits.

The old lighthouse beside Kaiyuan harbour provides a public coastal viewpoint. Build a visit around a few open shoreline stops and an arranged local guide, allowing the island’s weather and community calendar to shape the route.

The island's Tao name, Pongso no Tao, means 'island of human beings'. Han settlers transliterated this as Hongtou Yu (红头屿, 'Redhead Island'), a name recorded as early as the late Kangxi era in Huang Shujing's (黄叔璥) Taihai Shicha Lu (台海使槎录) and fixed under Japanese rule. Around 1947, after local officials objected that the name evoked disease, the island was renamed Lanyu, after its native Phalaenopsis orchids, with the change approved by the county magistrate and the Taiwan Provincial Administrative Executive Office. Western sources had called the island Botel Tobago; several other Taiwanese indigenous peoples, including the Amis and the Puyuma, have their own names for it.

In 1877 the Hengchun magistrate Zhou Youji (周有基) unilaterally proclaimed Hongtou Yu part of Qing territory under Hengchun County, and under the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki the island passed to Japan with Taiwan. Japanese officials confirmed control with a 1897 survey mission, the same year the anthropologist Torii Ryuzo (鸟居龙藏) first explored the island and recorded its residents as 'Yami', the origin of that ethnonym. In 1940 the colonial government conscripted Yami people to build a weather station, completed in 1941, and in 1945 the Republic of China's Nationalist government established the Lanyu Area Garrison Command (兰屿地区警备指挥部) at Hongtou village.

What to look for

• Tao boat-building and traditional houses reflect an island maritime culture.
• The old lighthouse overlooks Kaiyuan harbour.
• Community-led visits add context to the villages and coastal landscape.

Location & getting there

Getting to Orchid Island

Ferries connect Kaiyuan harbour with Taitung’s Fugang harbour and, when scheduled, Houbihu near Kenting. Flights use Taitung and Lanyu airports. Confirm the specific departure port, island transport and return service before travelling.