Taiwan · Taiwan
Where to Stay in Miaoli, Taiwan
Where to stay in Miaoli
Not every neighbourhood fits every trip — here's what each one is good for.
Where you stay in Miaoli turns on the town or the hills. The town centre keeps the shops, the museums, and the station within reach, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the county seat. The green hills close in around.
Rooms sit in the river valley. Out toward the mountains and the hot springs, the roads climb into Hakka country. A room in the hills trades the town for the round houses, the strawberry farms of Dahu, and the tung-blossom slopes.
The wooded ranges rise past the edge. If you want the shops and the museums, stay downtown; if you want the hills, take a room in the mountains. Either way, the hills are close at hand.
About Miaoli
Miaoli is the Hakka town of the northern hills.
What is Miaoli known for?
In the green hill country of northwest Taiwan the Hakka settled long ago, and the town keeps their round houses and ancestral halls, their festivals and their food, along with old kilns and a mountain railway, while the tung trees snow white blossom on the hills in spring. Ceramic workshops fill the town. Hakka and hills mark the town.
What are the main landmarks in Miaoli?
The Hakka round house stands among the hills of Miaoli. The great circular clay building, in the old Hakka way, rises in the valley, the mark of the town, near the river. Old kilns and railways fill the county.
The ceramics workshops and the mountain railway keep the crafts and trade alive, while the woodcarving town of Sanyi, its broken railway bridge, and the tung-blossom hills mark the Hakka country around Miaoli.
What is the history of Miaoli?
Miaoli grew as a Hakka town of the hills. When settlers came to Taiwan from the mainland, the Hakka took the harder hill country of the north, clearing the slopes for rice, tea, and camphor, and they built their villages around round houses and ancestral halls. They kept their old ways and tongue.
The Hakka held to their language, their festivals, and their food, apart from the Hokkien of the plains, and Miaoli became a stronghold of their culture. Clay, camphor, and coal came from the hills. The town grew kilns for pottery and pressed camphor from the forests, and a mountain railway was cut through the ridges to carry the trade.
Then the earth shook the hills hard. A great earthquake struck the county long ago, and a stone-walled village and its monument still recall the dead. The tung trees still snow the hills in spring.
Miaoli keeps its Hakka ways and its kilns in the hills.
Where is Miaoli?
Miaoli lies in the hills of northwestern Taiwan, between the plain and the mountains. The town sits in a river valley of green terraced hills, where the western plain rises toward the central range, on the Houlong river near the coast. Wooded ridges rise inland.
The hills roll down to the sea.
What is the climate of Miaoli?
The weather in Miaoli is subtropical, warm and humid the year round. Hot, wet summers and mild winters cross the hills, and the summer brings heavy rains and the typhoons, while the winters stay soft and often dry. Sea winds cross the valley in autumn.
The green hills stay warm much of the year.
How do you get to Miaoli?
Miaoli lies in the hills of northwestern Taiwan, between Taichung and Hsinchu. Trains on the west-coast line run to it up and down the island, and mountain roads climb east into the hills and the hot-spring country. Buses reach the county towns around.
Most arrive by rail along the coast.
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Updated August 2026