Lalashan, Taiwan Becomes First Urban Night Sky Place in Taiwan and Third in Asia
By Access Fixtures Lighting Specialists·Dark Sky Parks and Recreation
Why Lalashan Matters Beyond Taiwan
The Lalashan designation is the second Urban Night Sky Place to earn significant coverage in this library in a single month — Golden Gate Canyon State Park in Colorado received its designation in September 2026. Two Urban Night Sky Place designations in the same period, from two different continents and two dramatically different development contexts, provide a clearer picture of what the designation pathway actually requires and what it produces.
Lalashan is a mountain forest area at altitude, with a Taoyuan City population base and significant tourism infrastructure including accommodation operators whose lighting commitments were part of the designation application. Golden Gate Canyon is a 12,000-acre state park adjacent to Denver with 1.7 million annual visitors and public facility infrastructure. The two sites share the Urban Night Sky Place designation but represent completely different scales, ownership structures, and compliance challenges. That range is instructive for US parks managers, resort operators, and municipal planners evaluating their own designation prospects.
The "Dark Sky, Not Dark Ground" Standard
The phrase that guided Lalashan's project — "dark sky, not dark ground" — is an important framing for any community or facility pursuing dark sky designation. It directly addresses the most common objection to dark sky lighting standards: that protecting the night sky requires eliminating safety lighting and leaving people in the dark. Lalashan's project explicitly rejected that framing. Safety lighting was maintained. Pedestrian routes, parking areas, and accommodation facilities remained lit. What changed was the quality and direction of that lighting — shields and angle adjustments that kept light on the ground and out of the sky.
The 400+ streetlights upgraded at Lalashan were not removed. They were retrofitted with shields or had their aim angles corrected. The result was more than two-thirds of outdoor lighting in the designated area meeting DarkSky principles — not through elimination, but through redirection. That is the specification argument that access to DarkSky certification makes possible for communities that have assumed certification requires lights-off rather than lights-right.
What the Designation Required — and What It Produced
Lalashan Designation Elements
- 400+ streetlight upgrades: Shields added or aim angles corrected on all public streetlights in the designated area — the infrastructure component of the project
- Accommodation operator commitments: Local hotels, guesthouses, and lodges secured dark sky management commitments — extending compliance beyond public infrastructure to private tourism property
- Municipal guidelines adopted: New Taoyuan City guidelines on light pollution prevention formalized the standards that the designation requires — creating a policy framework that supports ongoing compliance
- Two-thirds compliance rate: More than two-thirds of all outdoor lighting in the designated area meets DarkSky principles — a documented metric, not an aspirational claim
- Cultural and ecological integration: Atayal Indigenous culture and forest ecology are part of the designation narrative — connecting dark sky protection to existing conservation and heritage values
- Astronomy-based tourism: The designation supports astro-tourism development as an economic driver — framing dark sky protection as a revenue-generating asset, not only a conservation cost
The Urban Night Sky Place Pathway for US Parks and Resorts
The Lalashan and Golden Gate Canyon designations together define a clearer picture of what the Urban Night Sky Place pathway requires for US applicants. Both sites are near significant urban light domes. Both required infrastructure upgrades — fixture retrofits or replacements — as the primary compliance action. Both integrated educational and cultural programming as part of the application. Both framed dark sky protection as a visitor experience asset rather than a visitor experience sacrifice.
For US state parks, regional parks, resort communities, and tourism destinations that have assumed dark sky designation is not achievable near urban areas, these two designations in the same season provide the most direct available evidence to the contrary. The Urban Night Sky Place category was designed for exactly this context. The pathway is open. The question for US applicants is whether they have the fixture inventory and the management commitment to execute the same approach Lalashan and Golden Gate Canyon demonstrated.
Our photometric analysis service produces the BUG rating documentation and uplight verification that DarkSky International designation applications require. Our full catalog of wildlife friendly, bollard, and parking lot fixtures covers the infrastructure upgrade component that both Lalashan and Golden Gate Canyon required as their primary compliance action.
Access Fixtures Solutions for Dark Sky Place Applicants
Full-Cutoff Street and Area Lighting
Fully shielded street lights and area luminaires at warm color temperatures — the streetlight upgrade category that provided the primary compliance action at both Lalashan and Golden Gate Canyon's successful Urban Night Sky Place designation projects.
Shop Street LED Lights →Bollard Pathway Lighting
Low-mounted, fully shielded bollard lights for park paths, campground loops, and resort pedestrian routes — the "dark sky, not dark ground" fixture category that keeps visitors safely lit while eliminating the upward scatter that drives sky brightness.
Shop Bollard Lights →Solar Lighting for Remote Sites
Solar-powered fixtures with programmable curfew controls for remote trailheads, campground loops, and visitor facilities without grid infrastructure — combining dark sky compliance with off-grid capability for the types of sites that pursue Urban Night Sky Place designation.
Explore Solar Lighting →Photometric Studies for Designation Applications
Our lighting engineers document BUG ratings, uplight confirmation, and footcandle levels — producing the compliance record that DarkSky International Urban Night Sky Place and International Dark Sky Park designation applications require and that accommodation operators and municipal guideline compliance needs to verify.
Request a Photometric Study →Pursue Your Dark Sky Designation With the Right Fixture Specification
Our lighting specialists help state parks, resort communities, municipal tourism areas, and recreation facilities specify fully shielded, warm-spectrum, dark sky compliant LED systems — and produce the photometric documentation that DarkSky International designation applications require. Contact us to get started.
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