Geologically, Dapo Pond is the product of the Chihshang Fault, one of the active fault systems running through the East Rift Valley. The fault created a depression in the valley floor, and water found it — specifically, an underground stream emerging at the toe of the Xinwulyu River's alluvial fan. That stream fills the pond, and the pond in turn feeds northward into the Xiuguluan River, one of eastern Taiwan's major waterways. The connection is quiet and indirect: the pond doesn't rush anywhere; it seeps, it drains slowly, it gives its water gradually to the river system that eventually reaches the Pacific coast. During the period of Japanese colonial administration, Dapo covered roughly 55 hectares — large enough to supply the fish and shrimp consumed across the entire Chishang area. Lotuses grew densely in its shallows, and water chestnuts proliferated. It was, by the accounts left from that era, a genuinely productive wetland in an agricultural valley that valued productivity.

After Taiwan's administration transferred from Japan to the Republic of China in 1945, the pond received formal recognition. Taitung County named it one of its ten scenic sights, designating it under the evocative title The Fishing Line of Chihshang — a name that captured both the pond's productivity and the contemplative pleasure of sitting at its edge with a line in the water. That recognition coincided with decades of change that were not entirely kind to the pond. A drainage ditch built for water conservation purposes altered the hydrology. Natural silting continued, a process that no body of still water entirely avoids over time. The combined effect was gradual: 55 hectares shrank, decade by decade, to something much smaller. By the time Taitung County Government undertook a revitalization effort, the pond had diminished significantly. The restoration brought it back to roughly 28 hectares of open water and wetland habitat — smaller than its historical maximum, but alive.

What the pond offers now is a different kind of abundance from the one the colonial-era records describe. The fish and shrimp are still there, though fewer. The lotuses return each summer, their pink and white blooms carrying the slightly improbable look that lotuses always have — too geometric, too perfect, as though someone designed them rather than grew them. Birds work the reed beds and the shallows: egrets, herons, kingfishers that flash turquoise over the surface and vanish. The bird-watching area that the county built along the embankment draws birders who come early in the morning when the light is low and the pond is still. Walking paths, pavilions, and a designated fishing zone make the rest of the perimeter accessible without pressing too close to the wetland core. The Taiwan International Balloon Festival chose Dapo as the venue for its light show in 2017, and the image of hot-air balloons glowing above the reflective water of the valley — with the mountains rising dark on both sides — has become one of the region's signature photographs.

Getting to Dapo Pond is straightforward. Chishang Station on the Taiwan Railway is the access point for the whole area, and the pond lies within walking distance to the southeast. Cyclists who come to ride Mr. Brown Avenue — the flat paddy-field lane that runs south of town — often extend their route to circle the pond, adding a kilometer or two of lakeside path to a journey that was already defined by water and light. The combination of the paddies, the lone Takeshi Kaneshiro Tree standing in the fields nearby, and the quiet of Dapo itself gives this corner of the East Rift Valley a cohesion that more famous landscapes sometimes lack. Everything here is connected by water: the mountain streams, the irrigation channels, the pond, the river. The valley floor is, at its core, a single hydrological system — and Dapo Pond sits near its heart.