Sun Moon Lake Lalu Island

A tiny island in the middle of Sun Moon Lake that was once a much larger landmass. It was flooded when the Sun Moon Lake Hydroelectric Project went online, and part of what remained sank beneath the waterline during the 921 Earthquake. In the Japanese colonial era it was named Jade Island (玉島) and was home to Tamashima Shinto Shrine (日月潭玉島社), built by the Taiwan Power Company (臺灣電力株式會社) in 1931 to pray for the success of the hydroelectric works. It enshrined Ichikishima-hime (市杵島姫命), a water deity whose spirit descended from Itsukushima Shrine (嚴島神社) in Japan. After the war most of the shrine’s structures were pushed into the lake—though a surviving pair of komainu (狛犬) is now kept at the Shuishe Village assembly hall beside Longfeng Temple (龍鳳宮) on the lakeshore—and the island itself was renamed Guanghua Island (光華島) in support of ROC nationalism. More recently it was renamed Lalu Island (拉魯島) to honor its central position in the mythology of the Thao Indigenous people.