New Taipei City Discovery Guide

New Taipei City wraps entirely around Taipei, and almost everything people picture when they picture Taiwan is actually here.

Jiufen, the old gold-mining town of stepped lanes and red lanterns above the sea; Shifen, where paper lanterns are released over the railway tracks; the eroded rock formations at Yehliu; the hot springs and Atayal villages at Wulai; and the Tamsui waterfront at sunset.

It is the most populous municipality in Taiwan, and it is also mostly mountains — two-thirds forest, with hiking trails, waterfalls and a coastline of headlands and surf beaches within an hour of the capital.

Practically, it functions as Taipei’s hinterland: you stay in one and spend your days in the other, and the metro joins them.

The north-east coast

A single long day from Taipei: Jiufen for the lanterned lanes and the tea houses looking down to the sea, Jinguashi’s gold museum and the ruined Thirteen Levels smelter, and Bitou Cape or Nanya for the eroded headlands.

Pingxi line

A branch railway through a river gorge, hopping between Shifen, with its waterfall and lantern releases on the track, Houtong’s cat village, and Pingxi itself.

Yehliu

A cape of wind and salt-eroded sandstone, where the Queen’s Head and hundreds of mushroom rocks stand on a wave-cut platform.

Tamsui

The end of the red metro line: a waterfront promenade, Fort San Domingo, the old Hongmao fort, street food, and the best sunset near Taipei.

Wulai and Yingge

Hot springs and a waterfall in Atayal country; and a town that has made ceramics for two centuries, with a good museum.

New Taipei is the place people move to, and its character comes from that.

Suburb and hinterland

Around four million people live here, more than in any other Taiwanese municipality, most of them in dense districts pressed against Taipei’s boundary — Banqiao, Zhonghe, Xinzhuang, Sanchong. Many commute in, and the identity is less a city’s than a collection of towns that grew together.

Industrial history

Coal, gold and ceramics built these towns. Jiufen and Jinguashi were mining settlements that emptied when the seams ran out and were rediscovered by tourism; Yingge has made pots since the early nineteenth century.

Indigenous presence

The Atayal are the indigenous people of the mountains here, with communities around Wulai and Sanxia, their own language and a facial tattoo tradition that survives in memory and museum.

Temple life

Folk religion is strongly practised, with temple festivals, spirit mediums and processions that fill the streets.

Friendliness

Taiwan has a genuine reputation for kindness to strangers, and it holds up.

Sky lanterns are beautiful and they come down. The Pingxi lanterns land in the forest and the river as wire frames and paper, and the clean-up is a real local burden. Biodegradable lanterns are now available; use one, and consider that the surrounding hills are a water catchment.

Jiufen and Shifen are small. Both are overwhelmed at weekends by day-trippers from Taipei. Go on a weekday, arrive early or stay overnight, and remember that people live in those lanes.

Wulai is Atayal territory, and the village has its own cultural centre and businesses. Buy from them rather than from the souvenir stalls, and ask before photographing people in traditional dress.

At Yehliu, stay behind the red line — the formations are fragile and the rocks are slippery, and people have been swept off by waves.

Take your rubbish; public bins are scarce, as in Taipei.

October to December is the best stretch: warm, drier, clear, with the typhoon season over and the mountains at their most comfortable.

March to May is mild and green, though the north coast gets persistent drizzle and the plum rains arrive in May.

Mid-February or thereabouts brings the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the lunar new year, which is the single best reason to time a visit — and the most crowded day of the year in that valley.

June to September is hot, extremely humid and the typhoon season; afternoon thunderstorms are routine and a direct hit closes everything.

January and February are cool and damp — the north of Taiwan gets a grey drizzling winter that surprises people — but the hot springs at Wulai make sense then.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the city

Taiwan is inexpensive for food and transport and moderate for accommodation, and New Taipei is cheaper than Taipei for a room while still being on the metro — which is why a lot of visitors stay here and commute in.