The terrain within the Kenting National Park area is dominated by low mountains and hilly tableland. Its terrain is roughly divided into three parts according to Taiwan County Highway 200 and Taiwan Provincial Highway 26.
Location of Taiwan County Highway 200 in Kenting National Park.
Location of Taiwan Provincial Highway 26 (where your Kenting Mood set’s in)
In the areas to the north of Taiwan County Highway 200 of Pingtung and to the east of Gangkou River, except for the Changle and Manzhou areas at both sides of Gangkou River which are valley plain, all are stretches of low mountains and hills, such as Taiping Mountain (太平山), Nanren (南仁山) Mountain, Piyi Mountain (埤亦山), Chufeng Mountain (出風山), Zhulaoshu Mountain (豬嶗束山) , etc., with altitude of about 400 feet and slope of mostly more than 30%.
They belong to the remnants of the central mountain range. The areas to the south of Taiwan County Highway 200 of Pingtung and to the east of Taiwan Provincial Highway 26 belong to the coral reef limestone tableland with altitude of about 200 meters and slope of mostly between 25% and 30%.
The terrain of the area to the west of Taiwan Provincial Highway 26 between Baoli River (保力溪) and Ma’an Mountain (馬鞍山) is low and flat; it is the rift valley plain of Hengchun. Going further to the west is the west tableland of Hengchun, of which the altitude is about 150 meters high. The west side of the tableland is the cliff of tableland, the uplifted coastal terrace, and the coastal coral reef.
Eluanbi and Maobitou are the two peninsulas at the southernmost protruding sea area of Hengchun Peninsula, while Nanwan is in the middle. The coastline is tortuous, thus forming many small bays.
The main rivers in the area are Sichong River (四重溪), Baoli River (保力溪), Wangsha River (網紗溪) , Gangkou River (港口溪), to mention few. Because riverbed of the stream is steep, the stream is rising high during the rainy season, and it is drying during the drought season.
Sichong River(四重溪)
Baoli River (保力溪)
Gangkou river and Gangkou suspension bridge
The large and small river streams in the mountains such as Gaoshifo Mountain (高士佛山), Wanlide Mountain (萬里得山), Chufeng Mountain (出風山), Zhulaoshu (豬嶗束山) Mountain, and so on converge to become single Gangkou River stream, which goes south through villages such as Xianglin (響林) , Manzhou (滿州), and Shemali (射麻里) to the port before going to sea and Gangkou river is the longest river in the region.
The canyon area along the stream is distributed with some fertile fields and beautiful ponds. The rivers on Hengchun plain meet at Longluan Lake in the south of the city and then they flow to north from the scupper at the north of the lake.
They then flow through Sigou (四溝), Sangou (三溝), Tougou (頭溝), etc., to Xinjie (新街) before injecting into the port at Sheliao (射寮).
Sheliao (射寮)
As for the lakes of this area, in addition to Longluan Lake (龍鑾潭) and Caotan Lake (草潭), several small lakes can be seen on the erosion residual surface of mountain stream. Longluan Lake (龍鑾潭) is a part of the Special landscape/scenic area of Kenting national park.
These include Yulanlan (魚蘭濫) (which is Nanren Hu on Nanshan Road), the pond of the grassland at Chufengbi (出風鼻) and Dapingding (大平頂), and others. The highest mountain in the area is Wanlide Mountain (萬里得山), of which its altitude is 520 meters.
Wanlide Mountain’s (萬里得山) altitude is 520 meters.
Longluan Lake in Kenting National Park is famous for bird watching activities