Yilan County Government - 宜蘭縣政府全球資訊網

Located on the southwest of Datong Township, Yilan County is bounded by Yuanshan Town and Sanxing Town on the east, Fuxing Town, Taoyuan County and Jianshi Town, Hsinchu Town on the northwest, Nan'ao Town and Heping Town on the south and Wulai Town, Taipei on the north and is a narrow and long area comprises mostly of hills that slopes from the southwest to the southeast. The main rivers and water catchment areas in Datong Township flows from the southwest to the east to the Pacific, the people in the villages live by the Lanyang River and hillsides on both banks of the Luodong River, tableland and flat alluvial area.

The town is abundant in high mountains and waters and a clean and elegant environment made of high mountains and lofty peaks, beautiful sceneries, birds and flowers and is free from air pollution and noise. It ranks first in Yilan County in terms of tourism resources and has abundant unique local resources.

People living in Datong Township are mostly Atayal people that live on the hillsides on both banks of the Lanyang River, tableland or flat land. During the Japanese occupation and from the recovery of Taiwan until early 1950s, the total population of the entire town was 9873, representing 2499 households, there has been a more than 40% decrease of 4031 in total population and a 31% decrease of 775 in the number of households than before. The reason is that the population of Taiping Village and Tuchang Village (already merged into Taiping Village) consisted mainly of immigrant workers during the peak period of logging and forestation; recently, Forest Administration Lanyang Forest Area Management Office (has been renamed Luodong Forest Area Management Office) implemented the new forest policy of the central government and decided that forestation is more important than logging, as a result of which logging operations were stopped in July, 1978 and the original workers moved to work in other forest areas, leading to abrupt decrease in the population of the town, which could be attributed primarily to the social reasons . Presently, the population of the village is 68, representing 25 households, much less comparing to nearly 7000 people 30 or 40 years ago. The population of the Gaoshan Nationality was about 3300 in early 1950s, increased to about 4000 in 1980s, up 17.5%. However, as a result of factors such as employment and study, etc. in recent years, drain of the people is inevitable.