Giogsafn

Giogsafn (MTLP: Giok+safn; 玉山)

Jade mountain, Mt. Morrison

Jade Mountain was first observed by westerners in 1857. W. Morrison,captain of the American freighter SS Alexander, sighted this mountainwhile departing from Anping Harbor, in what is now Anping, Tainan(Anpeeng). He recorded this sighting in his naval log, and the mountain gained the name Mount Morrison in western literature.

In 1900, after the annexation of Taiwan by the Japanese, two Japanese anthropologists, Torii Ryūzō and Mori Ushinosuke, became the first people to have been recorded ascending the mountain. They gave the mountain the name Niitakayama (新高山) or Mount Niitaka, literally the "New High Mountain", because it was even higher than Mount Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan.

Under its Japanese name, the mountain was used as the secret code to signal the carrier fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy to begin its attackagainst Pearl Harbor. The code was Niitakayama Nobore (English: "Climb Mount Niitaka").