Taiwan 
In numbers.
20m
Height
3.3m³/s
Average flow
estimate
Jun–Sep
Best months
650kW
Water power
estimate
The water at Shifen waterfall, month by month
It roars in June and from August to September.
The fullest months: June and from August to September.
- 2.2 m³/sJan
- 2.1 m³/sFeb
- 2.4 m³/sMar
- 2.5 m³/sApr
- 3.5 m³/sMay
- 4.3 m³/sJun
- 3.4 m³/sJul
- 4.0 m³/sAug
- 4.4 m³/sSep
- 3.2 m³/sOct
- 2.5 m³/sNov
- 2.2 m³/sDec
From about 2.1 m³/s in the lowest month to 4.4 m³/s in the highest. Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from June to September.
Estimate: the timing comes from rain, snowmelt and evaporation (NASA POWER, 1991–2020); the amounts from the river model of HydroATLAS (WaterGAP, 1971–2000). Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Waterfall in New Taipei
Shifen waterfall is a waterfall in Taiwan. The water falls 20 m over a front 40 m wide.
Getting there.
- Jiufennearest town · 8.8 km in a straight line
- Parking 200 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Taipei Songshan International Airport (TSA)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 24 km in a straight lineCar hire in TaipeiDiscover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From June to Septemberbest months to go (estimate)
Plan your visit
Stay, explore and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
How big is it?
How big it really is.
Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.
650 kW
About 3.3 m³/s falling 20 m: the power of the water as it drops.
- enough to power about 162 homes, if it were all turned into electricity
Power of falling water = density × gravity × flow × height. Average flow and height as shown above; an estimate.
Seen from the sky.
8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.
N
2 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.
Around the falls the river drops 33 m in 2.6 km. Here the river runs about 80 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 6viewpoints觀瀑平台4, 平溪線鐵道觀景點, 觀瀑平台2 and 3 more
- 10waymarked walking routes五四縱走, 五分山登山步道, 三貂嶺步道 and 7 more
- 12car parks
- —swimming spots
- —picnic sites
- 12toilets
- 8information boards and visitor centres
- 17bus stops within 1 km
- 14other named waterfalls within 4 km眼鏡洞瀑布, 萬寶洞瀑布, 枇杷洞瀑布 and 11 more
- —caves
- 4campsites拉波波村 and 3 more
- 3hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 km山明水舍, 十分幸福民宿, 河灣渡假村
- 20restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Jiufen8.8 km in a straight line
- Keelung10 km in a straight line
- Xizhi13 km in a straight line
- Shiding15 km in a straight line
- Pinglin15 km in a straight line
- Neihu20 km in a straight line
Weather
The weather, month by month.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon °C | 18 | 19 | 20 | 23 | 26 | 28 | 29 | 29 | 27 | 25 | 23 | 19 |
| Night °C | 15 | 16 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 25 | 26 | 26 | 25 | 23 | 20 | 17 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 99 | 92 | 131 | 126 | 228 | 262 | 162 | 263 | 252 | 116 | 115 | 100 |
| Wet days | 16 | 16 | 19 | 19 | 21 | 22 | 19 | 22 | 19 | 15 | 17 | 16 |
| Sun h/day | 1.0 | 0.9 | 1.7 | 2.6 | 3.6 | 5.2 | 8.3 | 7.4 | 5.6 | 4.0 | 2.1 | 1.1 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (160 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
Photos
Through visitors' eyes.
Recent years
Wet years and dry years
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 57% | 60% | 166% | 70% | 165% | 47% | 83% | 102% | 62% | 47% | 66% | 180% |
| 2021 | 61% | 70% | 55% | 55% | 84% | 146% | 122% | 223% | 49% | 207% | 69% | 83% |
| 2022 | 111% | 229% | 116% | 62% | 176% | 69% | 73% | 22% | 59% | 178% | 159% | 90% |
| 2023 | 61% | 59% | 38% | 76% | 59% | 66% | 66% | 94% | 58% | 89% | 24% | 90% |
| 2024 | 50% | 58% | 58% | 156% | 79% | 80% | 141% | 58% | 72% | 241% | 94% | 34% |
| 2025 | 46% | 101% | 211% | 164% | 117% | 94% | 326% | 31% | 27% | 179% | 232% | 139% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
Shifen waterfall
Taiwan
- 20 mHeight
- 3.3 m³/sAverage flow
- Jun–SepBest months
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q38369) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| River flow and catchment | HydroATLAS / RiverATLAS v1.0 (Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Relief, river profile, 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Paths, viewpoints, parking | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
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