Han Chinese settlers from Zhangzhou began arriving in the Jiji area in 1771. The indigenous place name persisted — Chiv-Chiv, Jiji — even as the character of the settlement shifted under successive administrations. During the Japanese colonial period, which lasted from 1895 to 1945, Jiji became a significant commercial hub for camphor. The mountain forests of central Taiwan produced camphor in quantity, and Jiji functioned as the collection and export point for the surrounding region. Camphor was a high-value commodity in that era, essential for the manufacture of celluloid and explosives, and the town prospered accordingly. By 1940, it was administered as Shūshū Town within Niitaka District, Taichū Prefecture. The Jiji Railway Line, threading through the mountain valleys, locked this small town into the larger economy of the island. The railway had turned a frontier settlement into a place of commercial consequence.

At 1:47 in the morning on September 21, 1999, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck. Jiji was its epicenter. The 921 earthquake — named for the date, 9/21 — killed more than 2,400 people across Taiwan and injured thousands more. Buildings across Nantou and Taichung collapsed; roads cracked open; mountainsides slid. In Jiji itself, the damage was severe and visible everywhere. The Wuchang Temple, a landmark structure in the township, partially collapsed and was later preserved in its ruined state as a reminder of what the earthquake did. Portions of Lalu Island, nearby in Sun Moon Lake, sank during the same event. For a township of roughly 10,000 people, the earthquake was not a distant disaster reported on television — it was something that happened under their feet, in the dark, in the early hours of the morning. Recovery took years. The community rebuilt, but the earthquake left its marks: in the preserved ruins, in the military history park, in the way residents describe the before and after.

Whatever the 921 earthquake took from Jiji, the years that followed gave back something different. Tourism arrived — specifically, the quiet kind. The Jiji Railway Line, which had carried camphor a century earlier, now carries day-trippers from Taichung who come to rent bicycles, walk the old station plaza, and move through a township that has deliberately leaned into its small scale. In March 2012, the Tourism Bureau of Taiwan named Jiji one of the Top 10 Small Tourist Towns in the country. The population, which peaked at 16,395 in 1970, had fallen to around 10,056 by 2023 — a decline that has paradoxically made the town more livable, less pressured, quieter. The military history park, the Taiwan Water Museum, and the conservation education center give visitors a range of ways to spend time. The Trees Party, a local political organization, won the 2014 mayoral election with a 29-year-old candidate — a detail that says something about the kind of community Jiji has become.

Jiji is surrounded by mountains. To the north, Zhongliao; to the west, Mingjian; to the south, Zhushan and Lugu; to the east, Shuili. The Zhuoshui River — the longest river in Taiwan — runs along the southern edge of the township before continuing west toward Ershui and the Changhua Plain. This enclosed geography is part of what makes Jiji feel insulated, even today. The mountains slow everything: the pace of development, the weather, the traffic. Big Jiji Mountain at 1,392 meters is not a destination in the way that Yushan or Alishan are, but it looms over the township's eastern edge as a constant presence. On clear days, the forested ridgelines hold a particular green intensity in the afternoon light — the kind of green that suggests moisture and elevation and a world that has largely kept its own counsel despite the centuries of human activity below.