Luanshan Forest Culture Museum

The Luanshan Forest Culture Museum is an open-air museum in Taitung County, Taiwan, dedicated to preserving the Bunun indigenous culture and promoting forest conservation. Visitors can experience traditional Bunun life, participate in guided tours, and enjoy eco-friendly activities.

Planning your visit

The Luanshan Forest Culture Museum is not a building. It is an open-air site in the mountains of Taitung County established by Bunun elders, and the museum is the forest itself — the trees, the traditional plant knowledge, the hunting and gathering practices, and the Bunun way of relating to the land.

The Bunun are one of Taiwan's sixteen recognised Indigenous peoples, Austronesian speakers whose ancestors settled the island thousands of years before Han Chinese arrival, and who are known for pasibutbut, a polyphonic harvest chant of remarkable complexity that drew ethnomusicologists' attention internationally.

Visits are guided by community members and involve walking, plant identification, traditional food, and demonstrations of crafts and hunting technique. The conservation dimension is central: the project exists partly to protect the forest from logging and to make Indigenous stewardship economically viable.

Taitung is on Taiwan's less-developed east coast. Allow half a day. The main booking is a guided tour. Current availability is shown below.