Nanshan

The Nanshan Tribe is located at 28K of the Taiwan Provincial Highway 7 of the Central Cross-island Highway Yilan Branch Line, at an altitude of 1,200 meters. It is a river terrace on the left bank of the upper reaches of the Lanyang River. It was originally called pyanan, meaning cooking, because in the past, the Atayal people often rest and cook here.  In 1959, the Yilan branch of the Central Cross-island Highway was built. At that time, Premier Jiang Jingguo of Executive Yuan passed by here and felt that the name of Pyanan was indecent, so he took the word Nan and changed the name of the village to Nanshan Village. Nanshan Village is divided into upper and lower hamlets. Kanaban is the lower hamlet, and is located about 300 meters north of the Nanshan Police Station. It is the original location of Pyanan Hamlet and as it locates belo the terrace, it is called the lower hamlet. Koxao is the upper hamlet. In 1913, the Japanese forces penetrated into the Nanshan area and set up a station at the current site of the Nanshan police station. In order to disperse the power of the indigines, the leader Losin-nobo moved half of the community members to live near the station and called it Koxao because of its nose-like landform.