Taiwan from Above

Taiwan is an incredibly diverse island country.  It is a place of large cities such as Taipei, Tainan, and Taichung, which boast gleaming skylines and some of the world's tallest skyscrapers.  Yet, at the same time, it's also a land of stunning mountains, pristine beaches, and centuries-old temples and pagodas.  Top content creator and drone pilot Thibfromabove spent three weeks traveling the length and width of Taiwan, and with this video takes us on a a whirlwhind areal tour of modern and ancient Formosa.  

While many people associate the island nation of Taiwan with its capital Taipei, the country is actually quite large in terms of land area - it covers over 36k square km (14k square mi), only a small portion of which is part of metropolitan Tapei or the other Taiwanese cities.  In this video, top contributor and pilot NAVA used a DJI Phantom 4 Professional drone to give us an aerial tour of the island, including some relatively unknown yet spectacular spots far from the skyscrapers of Taipei.  

Get a mini aerial tour of some of the top sights of Taiwan in this drone montage by Igontsyn.  Here are the spots featured: Cingjing (in the middle of the country, east of Taichung), Jinguashi (a town in the northern part of the island which is famous for its copper mines), a Shinto Shrine (a relic of the period when Taiwan fell under Japanese rule), Golden Falls (located in the Ruifang District of New Tapei City), the ruins known as the Remains of 13 Levels (also in New Tapri City), Jiufen (a mountain town in northern Taiwan).

The city of Taipei is the capital of the island nation of Taiwan as well as its largest city.  It's situated at the north end of the island, on the Tamsui River near its mouth on the South China Sea.  The city is teeming with skyscrapers, making it one of the most impressive skylines in the world.  Its most recognizable landmark is the Tapei 101 Tower, which has a roof height of 450 meters (about 1.5k ft).  Check out the 101 Tower and other sights of Taipei in this excellent drone travel reel by contributor Sukoon2fly.  

Take in the stunning scenery of northern Taiwan in this piece by Jona Bend.  The locations featured in the video include the following, all of which are located in Greater Taipei: the Maokong area of Wenshan, the southernmost district of Taipei; Shifen and Golden Waterfalls, two of the country's most famous falls, both of which are located in New Taipei City; the Yehliu Geopark; and more.  Greater Taiwan consists primarily of the city of Taiwan and New Taipei City, an administrative area which includes most of its inner and outer suburbs.  

Explore Taiwan in this highly cinematic first person view (FPV) drone video by AirVuz contributor and FPV pilot sharpwest.  Using an FPV racing drone, he will take you over the mountainous interior and spectacular coastlines of this Southeast Asian island nation, which is sometimes known as Formosa.  The coastal shots are particularly impressive, providing bird's eye views of the country's rocky cliffs and giant offshore rock formations. This video was tapped for the AirVuz FPV Pilots to Watch list in July of 2020.

Xueshan Mountain, once known as Mt. Sylvia, is the second highest peak on the island nation of Taiwan (itself once known as Formosa prior to the Chinese Communist Revolution).  With a maximum elevation of just under 4k meters above sea level (a bit under 13k ft), the peak can be seen in Taiwan's capital city Taipei on clear days.  It is situated in one of Taiwan's national parks, in the northern part of the island in the municipality of Taichung.  This drone video provides aerial views both of Xueshan as well as its surrounding peaks.

The number of shots in this video is astounding. Filled with time-lapses, panning and tracking shots, top-downs, still shots of moving palms, close up of kids playing a variety of sports, zooms, long-range, the list goes on and on. Shot in Taitung, a city on the southeast coast of the island nation of Taiwan, contributor and pilot bitostudio wanted to bring us a look at the world through the eye of a primitive hunter that observes creatures around it. It’s an interesting and excellent take.

Just east of the southern coast of Taiwan lies Orchid Island.   The island covers about 45 square lm (around 17 square mi.).  What makes Orchid Island most unusual is its native inhabitants, the Tao, who came to the island from the Philippines across the Luzon Strait in the 13th century.  The small island is almost entirely mountainous, with peaks as high as 400 meters (1.3k ft).  Contributor Jakublin used a drone to create a stunning aerial video of this small but spectacular rock of an island.  

Content creator RoamwithJohn used a drone to create this aerial video of the area around Jiufen, a mountainous area of northern Taiwan.  Situated in the Ruifang District of New Taipei City (the administrative area which covers most of suburban Taipei) Jiufen is home to some of the oldest gold mining operations in east Asia.  The video also features footage of Jiufen Falls (the "Golden Falls"), one of the most well known waterfalls in Taiwan.  Unfortunately, the mining activity has left a legacy of environmental contamination here.  

Contributor and pilot BestdayEver brightened our day with this amazing drone video of a famous rock formation on the island nation of Taiwan.  The Shen’ao Elephant Trunk Rock is situated on the coast of the Ruifang District of New Tapei City, the administrative area which covers much of northern Taiwan including the Taipei suburbs.  As you can see from the video, the name of the rock is quite appropriate - it really does resemble an elephant's trunk.  The rock and nearby fishing village lie beneath Mt. Shen'ao.

AirVuz contributor LucaLuca brings us this excellent drone video from Taiwan's Mt. Jade, which is also known as Yu Shan.  Located near the geographic center of the island, the mountain has a maximum elevation of just under 13k ft. above sea level, or just under 4k m.  That makes it the highest mountain in Eastern Asia outside of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula.  The mountain is part of Yu Shan National Park, which is Taiwan's largest national park and also one of its most scenic albeit one of its least accessible.  

For a first upload to AirVuz, new contributor Drone Taiwan brings us this excellent drone video of Kaohsiung, Taiwan.  Kaohsiung is the main city on the southern part of the island, and Taiwan's third-largest city overall after Taipei and Taichung.  The video opens with a nice shot of the 85 Sky Tower, Taiwan's tallest building from 1997-2004 and still the second-tallest as of 2023.  Other featured locations include the Kaohsiung Port Cruise Terminal at the :25 mark, the Kaohsiung Music Center (:41), the Liugui Buddha (2:04), and more.  

Check out this beautiful video from the mountains of southern Taiwan, compliments of natureroger.  The video was filmed on a hike to Teapot and Banpin Mountains, both of which lie within the boundaries of Kaohsiung, the main city in the southwestern part of the island.   The hike to the two mountains is considered one of the best on Taiwan, a country known in part for its fine hiking trails.  As you'll see from the video, hikers are well rewarded with stunning views of an other-worldly landscape.  

Check out this stunning drone video of a cultural festival in the island nation of Taiwan, compliments of content creator and pilot BestDayEver.  The festival is held in the town of Beigang, which is situated in Yunlin County on the island's western shore, between Tainan and Taichung.  Beigang is best known as the home of the Chaotian Temple, which you'll see at about the 1:05 mark in the video.  The temple is dedicated to the Chinese sea-goddess Mazu under a faith which originated in Fujian on the mainland.  

Longqi is a district of the municipality of Tainan in Taiwan.  Tainan is the island's third largest city and in many respects its cultural capital, having been the political capital for centuries in the past.  Located in the southwestern part of the island, the municipality includes rural districts like Longqi which are some ways in from the coast and quite mountainous.  In this excellent drone video by contributor jakublin, you'll get a bird's eye view of these beautiful mountains on the island once known as Formosa.  

Taroko Canyon is one of the best known natural sites in Taiwan.  It lies in a national park which sits in several counties in the west-central part of the island.  It is sometimes referred to as Marble Gorge, in reference to the large supply of marble in the area.  The area was originally designated as a national park by occupying Japan in the 1930's; when the island was taken over by the Chinese Nationalists in the late 1940's the park status was abolished, and subsequently reinstated in the 1980's.  

Contributor and drone pilot kirstycarmen created this beautiful aerial video of one of the top tourist attractions in Taiwan.  It's called the Lotus Pond, and it's an artificial lake in Kaohsiung, a large port city which is situated on the southwestern coast of the island.  The pond was opened in the early 1950's, shortly after the culmination of the Chinese Communist Revolution on the Chinese mainland, and it's known both for its lotus plants on the lake and Buddhist temples surrounding it.  

Check out this excellent video production from Taiwan, compliments of AirVuz contributor StarEye.  The video, which combines drone and ground camera footage and hyperlapse edits, was filmed over the northern part of the island, in and around Taipei.  The video opens with a shot of the Fuguijiao Lighthouse, at Taiwan's northern tip.  The highlight though is a nighttime hyperlapse sequence from downtown Taipei which starts at the :35 mark: check out the epic view of the 101 story Taipei 101 building, the world's tallest for a half-decade.

Check out this fantastic first person view (FPV) drone video of one of the world's tallest statues, compliments of AirVuz contributor and FPV pilot sharpwest.  He used his mini-drone to film the Guanyin of Nanshan, a 108 meter tall (354 ft.) landmark in the island nation of Taiwan.  Lcoated in the southern province of Hainan, the statue is dedicated to Guanyin, a bodhisattva (an important personage, in Buddhist nomenclature) associated with compassion.  Enshrined in 2005, the statue was amongst the world's dozen tallest as of mid-2020.

Taichung is a municipality in the western part of central Taiwan.  The city is the second largest on the island, after the capital city of Taipei.  A relatively young city compared to Taipei or Tainan, Taichung benefited from Japanese investment during the 50 years following the Sino-Chinese War of 1895 when the island was ruled by Japan.  In this video, contributor and pilot Will Fly used a drone to film a spectacular English manor which was built into the hillside of the area during colonial times.  

Here's a nice look at a well-known lighthouse on the island nation of Taiwan, compliments of natureroger.  It's called Cape Santiago Lighthouse, and it's located on a promontory in the northeastern corner of the island.  Built in 1935, it stands just under 17 meters (about 55 ft.) tall.  The lighthouse is situated in the Gongliao District, due east of the capital city of Taipei.  The lighthouse occupies the very northeastern part of the island and is designed to protect ships in the busy lanes in and out of the harbor near Taipei. 

While Taiwan is home to nearly 25 million pemanenet residents as of 2022, the vast majority live along the island's western and northern shorelines: Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung.  In this excellent drone video by AirVuz contributor LucaLuca, you'll get an aerial view of a very different side to Taiwan: the around the town of Yuli in southern Hualien County.  Hualien, which covers roughly the middle third of Taiwan's eastern coast, is the country's largest county by area but one of its least populous.  

Taiwan's Sun Moon Lake is home to some of the finest natural scenery in this island nation.  It's located in Nantou County, near the geographic center of the island.  Taiwan's largest lake, it's situated on the western side of the mountain range that runs down most of the country's eastern half.  In this drone video by Jack Shirley, you'll get a bird's eye view of the lake as well as some of the religious landmarks which sit atop the hills overlooking the lake: Ci'en Pagoda, Xuanguang Temple, and Wenwu Temple.

Contributor JarvisYen created this drone video of a cruise ship docked in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.  Kaohsiung is the center of the second-largest metropolitan area in the country, after Taipei.  Situated on Taiwan's southwestern coast on the island's finest natural harbor, it's home to the country's largest seaport.  The ship shown in the video is the Diamond Princess, one of two Grand Class ships operated by Princess Cruises.  Launched in 2004, the 290 meter (950 ft.) long ship can carry nearly 2.7k passengers.  

JrisYangFPV created this amazing first person view (FPV) video of one of the world's highest waterfalls.  It's the Jiao Lung Waterfall, and it runs down a cliff near the town of Alishan in Chiayi County, which is in the western part of the island.  It's a plunge-type waterfall with a drop of about 600 meters, or around 2k ft.  The waterfall is seasonal, and (as you might expect) flows heaviest during the monsoon season.  It's not easy to reach, so one can imagine the skill it takes to take it on with a racing drone!

Check out this drone video of a newer luxury hotel in the Taiwanese city of Luodong, compliments of content creator and pilot bbson52. Luodong is an urban township in an interior area of Yilan, one of the northeastern counties of this Southeast Asian island nation.  It's located on a landform known as the Yilan Plain.  The hotel is a newer property called the Cuncyue Hot Spring Resort.  The area is a popular getaway destination for residents of greater Taipei, which is located a bit to the north.  

Check out this fantastic drone video of a well-known Taoist temple in northern Taiwan, compliments of new contributor MavicAir2TW.  It's called the Wuji Tianyuan Temple, and it's located in the mountains of New Taipei City, just outside of the national capital.   Taoism, which originated in the Chinese mainland, is often synthesized with Buddhism and Confucianism; the majority of Taiwanese observe the three faiths in combination.  The temple is a major tourist attraction in Greater Taipei, particularly during the cherry blossom season. 

Drone and ground camera footage are combined in this compelling mini-tour of Taiwan.  The video will give you a sense of the diversity of this island nation in the South China Sea, whose 36k square km (about 14k square mi.) is home not only to 25 million people but also to spectacular mountains, rainforests, waterfalls, and other natural sights.  You'll be taken across the breadth of the land, and will get bird's eye views of sights ranging from wind turbine farms to giant buddha statues to the grandeur of Tapei.  

Check out this captioned drone video from across the island nation of Taiwan, compliments of digiotto,.  The video features footage from Valentine Lake and Waimu Mountain near the northeastern city of Keelung; Shuiwei Harbor in the Jinshan District of New Taipei City; the Taoyuan Valley in NTC's Gongliao District; Guishan Island; Taipei's Tiger Mountain; Kano Plain, Kano Hill, and Chihshang near the southerbn city of Taitung; Shimen Reservoir and the Guanyin Wind Farm in the northwestern municipality of Taoyuan;  and Shalun Beach in NTC.