Taroko, means the "magnificent and splendid" in the language of Truku, the aboriginal tribe who resides in Formosa Island. It is also known as "The Marble Gorge" for it's abundant supply of marble in the area.

The gorge itself was carved into the marble by the erosive power of the Liwu River. In about 20 kilometers the landscape rises from sea level to the tallest peaks over 3800 meters and forms the world's deepest marble canyon! The sllot canyons here are remarkable with narrow sections a thousand feet high, and only a dozen yards apart.

The pot holes on the stiff cliff are the result of limestone exposing to the eons of erosion of the flowing waters, they used to be the home of thousands of swallows.

The rock now seen in Taroko began over 200 million years ago as sediment on the bottom of the ocean. As the sediment collected, it was subject to increasingly large amounts of pressure which eventually hardened it into limestone. Over the past 100 million years, tectonic compression between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate supplied additional pressure that metamorphosed the limestone into marble. Uplifting forces from the plate collision pushed this rock above the surface of the ocean to where the Marble Gorges stand today.