The Tree That Hits the Moon! Scientists Find East Asia’s Tallest Tree in Taiwan
Quick Summary
Deep in the misty mountains of Taiwan, a team of scientists has discovered the tallest tree in all of East Asia. The tree is a giant fir that stands 84.1 meters tall. That is taller than a 27-story building! They named it the “Heaven Sword of the Da’an River.”
What Happened?
Back in 2014, a group of scientists, hikers, and tree climbers in Taiwan decided to do something adventurous. They would search the whole island for its tallest trees. They called themselves the “Taiwan tree seekers.”
This was not easy. Taiwan’s mountains are steep, remote, and covered in thick forest. Some spots take four days of hard hiking to reach. The team had to search through nearly a billion trees. That is like looking for one specific grain of sand on a very long beach.
To help, the team used a technology called LiDAR. An airplane flies over the forest and shoots tiny laser pulses downward. Those pulses bounce off the treetops and come back up. A computer then builds a detailed three-dimensional map — like a 3D picture — of every single tree below. LiDAR can measure tree heights so accurately it is like having a giant invisible ruler from the sky.
But even with LiDAR, the team had thousands of candidates to check. So they asked for help. More than 370 citizen scientists — regular people, not just experts — joined in. They looked through thousands of images from the laser maps, flagging the tallest trees.
In 2023, after years of searching, the team finally found their champion. Professional tree climbers scaled the enormous trunk and dropped a measuring tape all the way from the very top to the ground. The measurement came back: 84.1 meters.
That is taller than any other known tree in all of East Asia. The team named it the “Heaven Sword of the Da’an River.” The Indigenous Rukai people of Taiwan have an even more poetic name for these giant firs: “the tree that hits the moon.”
The results of their full search were published in a major science journal in 2026. By early this year, the team had found and climbed ten different Taiwania fir trees taller than 70 meters. Two of them cleared the 80-meter mark.
They also discovered something magical. Near a mountain called Benya, they found a single hectare of forest — an area about the size of two football fields — containing eleven trees each taller than a 20-story building. Near a sacred lake, around 30 giant firs were growing close together in what the researchers called a “temple of giants.”
Why Does It Matter?
These ancient trees are more than just impressive records. They store enormous amounts of carbon. Carbon is the gas that, when released into the air, warms the planet. Giant old forests like these are some of the best natural helpers in slowing climate change.
The trees also face real dangers. Droughts, stronger typhoons, and illegal logging all threaten them. Knowing where they are is the first step toward protecting them.
The project also shows what can happen when everyday people — citizen scientists — work side by side with researchers. Neither group could have done it alone.
Big Words
- LiDAR — Light Detection and Ranging; a technology that uses laser pulses fired from aircraft to create detailed 3D maps of forests and landscapes.
- Citizen scientist — An everyday person who volunteers to help real scientists collect or sort data.
- Taiwania fir — A type of ancient, giant conifer tree native to Taiwan and a few other parts of East Asia; one of the tallest tree species in all of Asia.
- Carbon sink — A forest, ocean, or other natural place that absorbs more carbon dioxide from the air than it releases, helping to reduce climate change.
- Old-growth forest — A forest that has grown for hundreds or even thousands of years without being cut down, full of enormous trees and rare wildlife.
Fun Fact
The Heaven Sword tree is estimated to be around a thousand years old. That means it was already a young tree around the time the Aztec Empire was first beginning to form!
Think About It
The scientists needed 370 citizen science volunteers and years of hiking to find the tallest tree. What other big mysteries in nature do you think could be solved if lots of people worked together?
Sources
- ScienceDaily — Scientists went looking for giant trees in Taiwan and found a lost world (August 3, 2026)
- Mongabay — Taiwan’s tallest tree found with help of citizen science
- CNN — Taiwan’s ‘Heaven Sword’ revealed as East Asia’s tallest tree
- Frontiers in Forests and Global Change — The journey of finding the tallest tree in Formosa Taiwan (peer-reviewed)