In the mountains of central Taiwan, a towering fir tree stretches 84.1 meters toward the sky—taller than any other tree in East Asia. The Indigenous Rukai people have a poetic name for these giants: "The tree that hits the moon." Now, scientists have finally found the tallest one yet.
For over a decade, a team called the "Taiwan tree seekers" has been hiking through Taiwan's rugged interior, searching for the island's forgotten giants. Taiwan, roughly the size of Switzerland, is one of the few places on Earth where trees can grow truly massive. Its steep mountains create pockets of protection where ancient forests still stand.
The breakthrough came in January 2023, during the Lunar New Year holiday. The team located an 84.1-meter-tall (276-foot) Taiwania fir in a remote valley near Mount Benya. The tree, nicknamed "Heaven Sword," is now recognized as the tallest in Taiwan and all of East Asia.
The discovery was years in the making. Back in 2014, researchers from the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute first entered the Cilan conservation area to study a famous trio of giants called the "Chilan Three Sisters." The tallest measured 69.3 meters high, with a trunk nearly three meters wide. Professional climbers from Australia later photographed these trees, bringing global attention to Taiwan's hidden forests.
But finding individual giants among 950 million trees scattered across mountains and valleys proved incredibly difficult. "It was like looking for a needle in a haystack," the team explained. Ground surveys alone couldn't cover enough ground.
So the researchers teamed up with National Cheng Kung University and began using LiDAR—airborne laser scanners that build 3D models of the landscape and estimate tree heights from above. The technology worked, but it had a flaw: automated software incorrectly measured 93% of trees it identified, often confused by cliffs and steep terrain.
That is where ordinary citizens stepped in. In 2020, the project opened its doors to volunteers. Hundreds of Taiwanese people began reviewing LiDAR images in their spare time, helping eliminate false candidates. Without their help, researchers could have spent years chasing trees that turned out to be far shorter than the maps suggested.
By the end of 2022, this citizen-powered collaboration produced the "Taiwan Giant Tree Map," documenting 941 trees taller than 65 meters across the island. Taiwan's forests, though scarred by industrial logging between 1912 and 1991, still cover about 60% of the island—and clearly still hold extraordinary secrets.
The discovery of the "Heaven Sword" marks more than a record. It proves that ancient, towering trees survived in places too steep for logging crews to reach. And it shows what can happen when scientists, remote sensing technology, and hundreds of ordinary volunteers work together toward a shared goal.
For the Rukai people, these trees have always been sacred. Now, the rest of the world is beginning to see what they have known for generations.