Тайваньның ең биік тауы – Юшань

Highest mountain in Taiwan
the mountain in Taiwan

Yu Shan or Yushan, also known as Mount Jade, Jade Mountain, Tongku Saveq or Mount Niitaka during Japanese rule, is the highest mountain in Taiwan at above sea level, giving Taiwan the 4th highest maximum elevation of any island in the world. It is the highest point in the western Pacific region outside of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Yushan and its surrounding mountains belong to the Yushan Range. The area was once in the ocean; it rose to its current height because of the Eurasian Plate's movement over the Philippine Sea Plate. Yushan is ranked 40th by topographic isolation. The mountains are now protected as the Yushan National Park. The national park is Taiwan's largest, highest, and least accessible national park. It contains the largest tract of wilderness remaining on the island.

Yushan or Yu Shan is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese name It is also known as Mount Yu, Mount Jade, and Jade Mountain, calques of the same name. The name derives from its appearance in the winter, when its thick snow cover is thought to make its peak look like stainless jade. It was previously known in English as Mount Morrison, a name sometimes mistakenly thought to honor the missionary Robert Morrison, but simply the name of an American captain who sighted it. Other native names for the mountain include Saviah and Tongku Saveq (Bunun; the latter means "highest peak" or "sheltering peak"), Tanungu'incu (Kanakanavu), and Kanasian (Paiwan). During Japan's rule in Taiwan, the mountain became known as Mount Niitaka or Niitakayama ("New High Mountain") because new surveying showed that it was higher than Mount Fuji in the Japanese archipelago. As recently as seventeen thousand years ago, permanent ice caps existed throughout Taiwan's highest mountains and extended owing to the wet climate down to ; whereas currently, the nearest glaciers to the Tropic of Cancer are in Mexico on the Iztaccíhuatl volcano. The ocean waters off Taiwan's east coast are deep; in fact, submarine slopes plunge down to the Pacific Ocean at a grade of 1:10 and the ocean reaches a depth of more than about from the coast.

Under the Qing Dynasty, W. Morrison, captain of the American steam freighter Alexander, sighted the mountain while departing from Anping Harbor (present day Anping, Tainan) in 1857. His log was the first western mention of the mountain, which took his name in European accounts. European mountaineers couldn't access the mountain at the time due to hostile relations of local aborigines to both Qing authorities and Europeans. Under the Japanese, the anthropologists Torii Ryūzō and Ushinosuke Mori became the first people recorded to summit the mountain in 1900. They gave it the name "Mount Niitaka", which was used as the name of the Niitaka Arisan National Park in 1937. The Imperial Japanese Navy also used the mountain's name in its "Go" signalNIITAKAYAMANOBORE 1208 (ニイタカヤマノボレ一二○八 [Kanji: 新高山登る一二○八]), meaning "Climb Mount Niitaka 1208"to begin the surprise attack against the USN Pacific Fleet and its base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941 (8 December [1208] in Japanese calendar). The Yushan weather station on the north peak was finished in 1943. Under the Republic of China, a large bronze statue of Yu Youren was placed on the Yushan summit in 1966. The statue was cut down and thrown into a ravine by activists for Taiwan independence in 1996. In recent years, Yushan has played an important role in a new focus on Taiwan's identity. Because of its iconic status, Yushan has been chosen to be the background of the newly issued NT$1,000 notes on 20 July 2005. Similarly, a newly found asteroid by Lulin Observatory of National Central University was named after Yushan on 28 December 2007.

Yushan has an alpine climate (Köppen ET). The tip of Yushan is usually covered with frost from November to March. Elevations above may sometimes see snow during the winter months, and there are four consecutive months of snow accumulation at places with elevations higher than The first snow may appear in October and completely melts by May. Snow falls 24.3 days per year on average on Yushan, and the number is gradually decreasing. Yushan receives around of precipitation annually. It rains an average of 140 days per year, with the greatest frequency between May and August. From May until the first part of June is plum rain season or monsoon season. Taiwan's typhoon season roughly falls between July and September. The peak month is in August, which sees of precipitation on average, compared to in December, the driest month.