Eluanbi Lighthouse

Completed in 1883 by the Imperial Maritime Customs Service (大清皇家海關總稅務司) under British inspector Robert Hart (赫德) in response to the Rover shipwreck (1867) and Mudan incident (1871). This fortified tower at the southern tip of Hengchun Peninsula remains the only armed lighthouse in Taiwan and was originally ringed by 6 meter-deep ditch and equipped with Gatling guns to repel Paiwan Indigenous forces. Damaged in the First Sino-Japanese War and again by American bombing in 1945, it was rebuilt by the ROC in 1947 and refitted with its current Fresnel lens in 1962. Nicknamed the “Light of East Asia” for projecting the most intense beam in Taiwan, the structure was designated a national monument in 2024.