Yu Shan or Yushan, also known as Mount Jade, Jade Mountain, or , and known as Mount Niitaka during Japanese rule, is the highest mountain in Taiwan at above sea level, giving Taiwan the 4th-highest maximum elevation of any island in the world. It is the highest point in the western Pacific region outside of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Yushan and its surrounding mountains belong to the Yushan Range. The area was once in the ocean; it rose to its current height because of the Eurasian Plate's movement over the Philippine Sea Plate. The mountains are now protected as the Yushan National Park. The national park is Taiwan's largest, highest, and least accessible national park. It contains the largest tract of wilderness remaining on the island. Names Yushan or Yu Shan is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese name It is also known as , , and , calques of the same name. The name derives from its appearance in the winter, when its thick snow cover is thought to make its peak look like stainless jade. "Yushan" or Jade Mountain was also the name of a location in ancient Chinese mythology, a paradise said to be the home of the Queen Mother of the West. During the Qing Dynasty, Yushan was known in Chinese as Mugangshan ("Wooded Mountain") from its surrounding forests. Other Chinese names included Batongguan, transcribing its native Tsou name "Patungkuonʉ"; Baiyushan ("White Jade Mountain"); and Xueshan ("Snowy Mountain"). It was previously known in English as a name sometimes mistakenly thought to honor the missionary Robert Morrison, but simply the name of an American captain who sighted it. Other native names for the mountain include Saviah and Tongku Saveq (Bunun; the latter means "highest peak"), Tanungu'incu (Kanakanavu), and Kanasian (Paiwan). During Japan's rule in Taiwan, the mountain became known as or Niitakayama ("New High Mountain") because new surveying showed that it was higher than in the Japanese archipelago. Geography and geology The island of Taiwan is situated at the intersection of two tectonic plates – the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. Even as “recently” as the late Paleozoic (some 250 million years ago), the land here was still but a sedimentary seabed layered with silt and sand. As the two plates began pressing against each other, the land buckled, bent, and created the landscape – 165 mountains higher than above sea level on a relatively small