If you see one museum in Yilan, make it this one, and do it early in your trip. The Lanyang Museum (蘭陽博物館) is the county's own museum, beside the old Wushi Harbor in Toucheng, open since October 2010. Plenty of people come for the building alone. Stay for the permanent exhibition: it's a clear, well-made introduction to the mountains, the plain, the sea and the people of Yilan, and it makes the rest of the county make sense.
- Hours 09:00 to 17:00; ticket sales stop at 16:30, last entry 16:50
- Closed Wednesdays (open if a Wednesday is a national holiday), the day before Lunar New Year's Eve and Lunar New Year's Eve, and typhoon days when government offices close
- Entry Permanent exhibition NT$100; all-museum ticket NT$200 (permanent exhibition, special exhibition and Children's Archaeology Discovery Hall)
- Address No. 750, Section 3, Qingyun Road, Toucheng
- Phone 03-977-9700
- Getting there 20 minutes' walk from Toucheng Station, or a local bus to the Lanyang Museum stop
Tickets
Prices as posted by the museum in November 2026:
| Ticket | Permanent exhibition | All museum | Who |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full | NT$100 | NT$200 | Everyone else |
| Group | NT$80 | NT$180 | 20 or more full tickets |
| Student | NT$50 | NT$150 | Taiwanese students aged 6 and up |
| Free | Free | Children under 6 or under 115 cm; people with disabilities and one companion |
On their own, special exhibitions are NT$80 and the Children's Archaeology Discovery Hall is NT$50, though those prices can change with the show. Yilan residents and seniors get further discounts. Tickets aren't refundable. Want a break for lunch? Get a stamp on your hand at the exit and you can go back into the permanent exhibition once.
The building
Walk around the outside before you go in. Kris Yao's firm, Artech Architects (大元聯合建築師事務所), won a 2000 competition with the design, and its shape comes from the cuestas (單面山) you see all along this coast: rock ridges with one steep face and one gentle slope. The high point faces east toward Guishan Island, and the roof slopes down into the ground to the southwest, so the whole thing looks like one great rock tilted out of the earth. Look closely at the walls. The stone and cast-aluminum panels are laid out after the notes of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, to echo the patchwork of rice fields on the Yilan plain. The building sits in a wetland park around the old harbor's black reef rocks (烏石礁). Don't climb on them, or on the walls.
What's inside
Start at the top and work down. The open, column-free galleries are stacked to follow Yilan's geography, so looking down from the top level feels like looking out from the mountains over the plain to the sea, the way the county is laid out:
- Mountain level (山之層)
- Plain level (平原層)
- Sea level (海之層)
- Children's Discovery area (兒童探索區), plus the separate Children's Archaeology Discovery Hall (extra ticket)
Entry to the permanent exhibition is metered at about 20 people a minute, so expect a short wait at busy times. Leave umbrellas outside (folded ones can go in your bag). Food, drink, flash and tripods aren't allowed in the galleries, and there are lockers for big bags.
Getting there
- TRA Train to Toucheng Station, then about 20 minutes on foot toward Wushi Harbor.
- 131 From Toucheng Station or the Jiaoxi Transfer Station, local buses 131 and 1766 (both low-floor) and Red 1 (紅1, weekends) stop at Lanyang Museum or Wushi Harbor. From Jiaoxi, Green 19 (綠19) also runs.
- 1877 From Taipei, Kuo-Kuang 1877 stops at Lanyang Museum or Wushi Harbor. See buses from Taipei.
- CAR Freeway 5 through the Hsuehshan Tunnel, exit at Toucheng, then toward Wushi Harbor; the museum is at km 134.5 of Highway 2. The entrance plaza is drop-off only.
It pairs well with a boat trip from Wushi Harbor to Guishan Island, right next door, or the beach at Wai'ao. Just don't pick a Wednesday: the museum is closed, and the island is closed to sightseeing visitors too (Wednesday landings are only for approved school, educational and research groups).
→ More things to do · Toucheng · A rainy day in Yilan
Sources: Lanyang Museum: visit information, hours and tickets, architecture, transport. Checked November 2026.