Qingtiangang Grassland Live Cam

History

Walk across the green, gently undulating carpet of Qingtiangang and you’re literally pacing a landscape written by fire and human hands. The grassland sits on a lava terrace created when ancient eruptions poured basaltic flows across the northern flank of the Yangmingshan volcanic massif; those lava deposits cooled into a flat plateau that later weathered into the fertile, welldrained surface you see today. This volcanic origin explains why a large, unexpected meadow persists at 700–800 meters above sea level in a place otherwise dominated by forested slopes.

Before any formal mapping or colonial enterprise, the plateau belonged to the seasonal territories of the Ketagalan and other Plains Indigenous peoples. Oral histories and archaeological traces suggest these upland meadows were important hunting grounds—places to pursue sika deer and gather the seasonal bounty where highland and lowland resources met. When you stand on the trail and feel the wind, imagine the same wind pushing through grass as hunters and small familial groups moved across the plateau on foot, following deer trails and seasonal water.