Nan’ao

Nan’ao (南澳) is a mountainous township at the southernmost tip of Yilan County, bordering Hualien along the strategically important Suhua Highway (蘇花公路). The small population of approximately 6,000 is mainly composed of Tayal people, the third-largest of Taiwan’s recognized Indigenous groups. Remnants of the Japanese colonial presence include Nan’ao Shinto Shrine (1936) and Sayon’s Bell, a memorial to a young Indigenous woman whose tragic death during a typhoon in 1938 was exploited for wartime propaganda.