The city was called Kilai until the early twentieth century, a name connected to the Sakiraya people who lived in the area. Under Japanese rule the name was changed because Kilai sounded like the Japanese word for dislike, and the new name, Karenkō, meant Karen harbour. After 1945 the characters were kept but shortened, giving the present name Hualien. Permanent Han settlement began in 1851, when a group of farmers from Taipei arrived at Fengchuan, and the town expanded under Japanese administration in 1912 and 1923. It became a city in 1940.
From the journal
A city between the mountains and the water
Hualien City is small and rainy, with mountains and sea close at hand. Its night market and stone workshops offer a glimpse of life across the county.
In the same city · Hualien ↗Kilai, Karenkō, Hualien
Rain, earthquakes and the sea
Hualien has a tropical monsoon climate and rain in every month, with an average of more than 2,000 millimetres a year. The city faces the Pacific, and typhoons often pass close by. Earthquakes are common: a major one struck near the city on 3 April 2024, damaging buildings and closing roads. The harbour is an international port, though most of its traffic is domestic and freight, and the fish market at the south end sells the catch from the surrounding coast. The sea is never far away, and the mountains are closer still.
What to do in a day
The Dongdamen night market is the city's main evening gathering, with stalls selling grilled seafood, indigenous-style dishes and sweets. The Hualien County Stone Sculptural Museum displays work in marble and serpentine, materials quarried in the county. The railway cultural park preserves railway heritage, while the cultural and creative industries park reuses a former brewery. South of the city, the coast road runs toward the mountains and the ocean, and north of it the road climbs to Qingshui Cliff. Most visitors use the city as a base for the gorge, but it has enough of its own to fill a slow day.
