The Atayal people are one of Taiwan's sixteen officially recognized indigenous nations, and Wulai has been part of their homeland for as long as oral tradition reaches. They are hunters, farmers, and weavers whose territory once spanned much of northern Taiwan's mountain ranges. The distinct facial tattoos that marked Atayal adulthood — earned through demonstrations of skill and courage — are no longer practiced, but the cultural knowledge they expressed has been carefully maintained by Atayal communities. In Wulai today, around 6,300 people live across five villages in a district covering 321 square kilometers of steep, forested terrain. The Atayal presence is visible in the shops along the main street, in cultural performances, in the language spoken at home. Wulai is not a theme park version of indigenous Taiwan. It is a living community navigating its own continuity.

The district's topography is dramatic in the specific way that mountain watersheds are: narrow river valleys, sudden elevation changes, forest that climbs every slope. The Nanshi River runs through the heart of Wulai, fed by tributaries from the surrounding ranges, and the Tonghou River joins it near the town center. Average elevation sits at about 250 meters, but the ridgelines above rise considerably higher, creating a landscape where the sky is often framed by forest rather than open horizon. The Wulai Waterfall drops dramatically into the gorge below — visible from the gondola that ferries visitors up from the town — and the gorge itself, carved by the same river over millions of years, gives the district its most defining visual character. This is not gentle countryside. The terrain has always demanded something of the people who live in it.

Japanese colonial administrators classified Wulai as an "Aboriginal area" under Taihoku Prefecture, a designation that both acknowledged the Atayal presence and subjected it to colonial management. After 1945, when Taiwan passed from Japanese to Republic of China governance, Wulai was reorganized as a township of Taipei County. The changes in administrative category over those decades — from colonial aboriginal zone to rural township to district in a special municipality — trace the larger political history of Taiwan without touching the deeper continuity of Atayal life in the mountains. The Wulai Scenic Train, still running today, was built during the Japanese era to serve a logging and mining operation. The forest has largely recovered. The train now carries visitors toward the waterfall.

In August 2015, Typhoon Soudelor struck Wulai with exceptional force. Hotels were destroyed. Hot springs were buried under debris. The course of the Nanshi River itself shifted as surging water tore into the banks and reshaped the channel. Roads were cut, leaving residents temporarily isolated. The damage was severe enough that recovery took years rather than months. What the typhoon exposed, as disasters often do, was the particular vulnerability of a mountain community whose infrastructure had been built for tourism alongside a river prone to flash flooding. Wulai rebuilt. The springs reopened, the roads were repaired, and the gorge settled into its new geometry. But the 2015 typhoon remains a recent and tangible memory for the people who lived through it.