7 Most Instagrammable Spots in Jiufen

Jiufen, also spelled Chiufen, climbs the hillsides above Taiwan's northeast coast in New Taipei City's Ruifang District, its narrow stone stairways and teahouse balconies built up during a gold-mining boom under Japanese rule in the 1930s and 1940s. The mines shut in 1971 and the town nearly emptied, until a wave of nostalgia following the 1989 film A City of Sadness, shot largely in Jiufen, brought visitors back to its lantern-lit lanes.

1. Shuqi Road's lantern stairway

The steep stone stairway of Shuqi Road, strung with red lanterns and lined with teahouse balconies stacked one above the other, is Jiufen's single most photographed corner, especially once the lanterns are lit at dusk.

2. A-Mei Teahouse

The century-old A-Mei Teahouse occupies a wooden building carved with traditional masks, its tiered balcony looking out over Jiufen's rooftops toward the coast. Its resemblance to the bathhouse in Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away has drawn a steady stream of visitors since the early 2000s, though director Hayao Miyazaki has denied it was a direct inspiration.

3. Jiufen Old Street's snack alley

The covered lane of Jiufen Old Street is dense with food stalls selling taro balls, peanut ice cream rolls and grilled squid, and its narrow, roofed walkway makes for a very different, more chaotic frame than the open lantern stairways nearby.

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4. Shengping Theater

Built in 1934 during the mining boom, Shengping Theater was Taiwan's first custom-built movie theatre and has been restored as a small museum piece, its plain concrete facade a contrast to the ornate teahouses around it.

5. The sea view from Jiufen's upper lanes

Because the town is built into a steep hillside, several of its upper viewpoints open onto a wide view down to the coastline near Keelung, taking in the mountains falling directly into the sea, a very different, wider shot than the tight lantern alleys below.

6. Jinguashi's Golden Waterfall

A short drive from Jiufen, the neighbouring former mining settlement of Jinguashi has its own photogenic landmark in the Golden Waterfall, whose mineral-stained, ochre-coloured rocks and water are a striking contrast to Jiufen's wooden lanes, and the two are usually visited together.

7. Jiufen by night

Once the lanterns switch on and day-trip crowds thin out, Jiufen's lanes take on a warmer, quieter character, and the view back down the lit stairways after dark is a different, less crowded version of the same shots taken earlier in the day.

Traveller tips

• Jiufen is roughly an hour by bus or car from central Taipei; most visitors go as a half-day or evening trip rather than staying overnight.
• Weekends and Taiwanese public holidays bring heavy crowds to the narrow lanes; a weekday visit is considerably more comfortable.
• The lanterns are lit at dusk, which is also when the lanes are most crowded with photographers.
• Steps and narrow, sometimes slippery stone lanes make comfortable footwear more useful here than in most towns.