Live cameras in Daxi, Taiwan

Daxi is a district in the east of Taoyuan City, where the plain of northern Taiwan meets the first ridges of the mountains and the Dahan River swings past on its way to Taipei. About 94,000 people live here. The Atayal people lived in these valleys long before Han settlers arrived in the eighteenth century; after fighting broke out in 1803, families such as the Lin Ben Yuan clan moved in, and the riverside town became a busy trading port for camphor and tea. When the railway arrived elsewhere in 1909, trade moved away and Daxi turned to woodworking, which is why it is still known for carved furniture. Daxi Old Street, with its preserved shop fronts, the Daxi Bridge, the Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum and the district's famous dried tofu draw weekend crowds, and the Cihu Mausoleum holds the tomb of Chiang Kai-shek.

Gateway to the mountain roads

Daxi's feeds are published by Taiwan's highway and freeway agencies as part of the transport ministry's open data. Daxi has an interchange on National Freeway 3 at about kilometer 62.7, and Provincial Highway 3 runs through the district on its long inland route from Taipei toward the south. Provincial Highway 66, the expressway from the coast, also ends near here. Daxi is the gateway to the North Cross-Island Highway into the mountains, so the nearest-place rule on our map gathers a large set of cameras on these roads. Each feed shows a single photo that is swapped for a newer one at short intervals.

There is no summer time in Daxi; local clocks sit at UTC+8 the whole year. The hills catch more rain than the coast, especially in the plum rain weeks of May and June, and typhoons can bring landslides on mountain roads in late summer and early autumn. Summer daylight lasts until about a quarter to seven, winter daylight until about ten past five. The district's biggest event is the Daxi Daxi festival, honoring the birthday of Lord Guan in the sixth lunar month, usually around July or August, when parade troupes fill the streets and traffic slows to a crawl.

Shimen Reservoir lies just to the south, and the Lalashan forest and its giant cypress trees are reached by the winding mountain road east of town.

Sources: Daxi District - Wikipedia · National Freeway 3 (Taiwan) - Wikipedia · Provincial Highway 3 (Taiwan) - Wikipedia.