Jiaoxi Live Cam

Where hot water meets the sea: reading the land and the springs

Step off the train or a coastal road and the first thing you notice about Jiaoxi is the soft, persistent breath of steam that seems to hang above the town on cool mornings. Those steam plumes are not merely atmospheric flair; they are the visible expression of a tectonic story and a hydrogeological system that has been working for millennia. The hot springs along the northern edge of Yilan County owe their existence to deep circulation of meteoric water along fault zones where heat from the crust is closer to the surface. Groundwater percolates down through fractured rock, is warmed by geothermal gradients, interacts with minerals, and returns buoyantly along permeable pathways. This dynamic links Jiaoxi’s urban layout directly to its geology: on maps you can often see how springs cluster where fracture density and local lithology favor upflow.