Live cameras in Hualien City, Taiwan

Hualien City is the seat of Hualien County on Taiwan's east coast, a compact town of about 99,000 people squeezed between the Central Mountain Range and the Pacific Ocean. It covers only about 29 square kilometers, and from almost anywhere in town you can see high green peaks on one side and open sea on the other. About one in eight residents is Indigenous, mostly Amis, Truku, Atayal and Bunun, and their cultures shape local food, music and festivals. For most visitors Hualien is the gateway to Taroko Gorge, the marble canyon a short drive north, and the town itself offers the Dongdamen Night Market, the Hualien Railway Culture Park, the Japanese-era Pine Garden and the seaside parks along the shore.

East coast lifelines

The feeds here are part of the highway camera network that Taiwan's Ministry of Transportation and Communications shares through its TDX open data platform. Provincial Highway 9 runs through the city, linking the Suhua Highway to the north with the Hualien-Taitung road down the East Rift Valley, and Provincial Highway 11 starts its coastal run south along the Pacific. These are vital lifelines on an island where only a few roads cross the mountains, so the cameras are useful for checking conditions after storms or earthquakes. We list every camera under the closest town, and what you see are periodically renewed photos rather than video.

East-coast clocks follow the national standard of UTC+8, unchanged through the year. Because it faces east, sunrise comes a little earlier than on the west coast, about five in the morning in June, and in December the sun sets behind the mountains by around ten past five. The climate is warm and wet, with about 2,200 millimeters of rain a year and frequent typhoons in summer and autumn. On April 3, 2024, a strong earthquake struck near Hualien, damaging buildings and the Suhua route. In July and August many Amis villages hold harvest festivals, and the city holds a summer carnival during the school vacation.

Qixingtan, a long pebble beach in neighboring Xincheng beside the airport, is a favorite spot for watching the sunrise over the Pacific.

Sources: Hualien City - Wikipedia · 花蓮市 - Wikipedia (Chinese).