Zhuoxi

Zhuōxī (卓溪), known as Panital in Bunun, is a vast mountain township in southwestern Hualien. It is situated at the junction of the Central Mountain Range and Jade Mountain Range, with its western half falling within Yushan National Park. The township is predominantly Bunun; most present-day villages were formed in the 1930s when the colonial government forcibly relocated communities from remote settlements along the Batongguan Traversing Trail (八通關越道路) to lowland sites. The trail’s police garrison network remains the township’s defining heritage, with ruins such as the Taranasu Garrison still standing in the mountains, and the Kasibanan Monument marking the site of a Bunun uprising against Japanese authorities in 1915.