Taiwan Cement Shoushan Quarry Site

The Shoushan Quarry Site encompasses the extensive limestone mining areas on the slopes of Shoushan (壽山, also known as Takao Mountain or Monkey Mountain) in Gushan District, Kaohsiung. This entry documents the quarrying operations on the mountain itself — the extraction site that supplied raw materials to the Asano Cement / Taiwan Cement factory complex located at the mountain's base.

Origins of Quarrying on Shoushan

Shoushan is a raised coral reef mountain composed primarily of Pleistocene limestone, ideal for cement production. In 1913, Asano Cement Company (浅野セメント株式会社) obtained exclusive mining rights from the Taiwan Governor-General's Office for approximately 190 hectares of government-owned land on Shoushan. Quarrying operations began in 1915 to supply limestone and clay for the cement factory under construction at the mountain's foot. When the factory commenced production in May 1917, Shoushan's limestone had already proven to be of exceptional quality for cement manufacturing.

Wartime Intensification

During the 1930s and especially after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, quarrying operations on Shoushan were dramatically intensified. The cement factory was expanded in stages during the 1930s, requiring correspondingly massive volumes of raw limestone. The cement produced from Shoushan's stone was critical for military construction projects across colonial Taiwan and the expanding Japanese empire — including airfields, coastal fortifications, naval installations, harbor improvements, and air-raid shelters. The mountain's limestone was essentially converted into the infrastructure of war.

The Pacific War years (1941-1945) saw maximum exploitation of Shoushan's mineral resources. Even as Allied bombing damaged the factory below in 1944-1945, quarrying operations continued to support emergency military construction. The war years left deep scars on the mountainside from accelerated extraction.

Postwar Continuation Under Taiwan Cement

After Japan's surrender in August 1945, the quarrying operations were taken over along with the factory by the newly established Taiwan Cement Corporation (台灣水泥公司) in May 1946. Under the ROC government's postwar reconstruction program, quarrying continued and even expanded during Taiwan's rapid industrialization in the 1950s-1980s. Around the time the concession expired, Taiwan Cement proposed converting about 100 hectares of its own quarry land to commercial and recreational development, but the plan was frozen after protests from environmental organizations concerned about protected ecological areas within the proposed zone.

Cessation and Environmental Legacy

Mining rights on Shoushan expired on November 27, 1992, ending nearly 80 years of industrial extraction. The quarrying left dramatic scars on the mountainside visible from across Kaohsiung — exposed limestone cliff faces, terraced extraction benches, and stripped vegetation zones. Nearby Banpingshan (半屏山), which was quarried by other cement companies, was lowered by quarrying from about 233 meters to 181 meters.

In 2011, Shoushan was designated as the core area of Shoushan National Nature Park (壽山國家自然公園), Taiwan's first national nature park. The former quarry zones have gradually undergone natural vegetation recovery, though the geological scars of decades of extraction remain clearly visible. The site now hosts hiking trails and serves as an outdoor classroom for environmental education about the consequences of industrial resource extraction.