Multicolored 'mosaic' of mini farms surrounds Taiwan's largest river — Earth from space

This recent satellite snap shows off a multicolored "mosaic" of tightly packed mini farms covering part of Taiwan in the western Pacific Ocean. The sea of fields and shade nets demonstrates the scale of the agricultural challenges facing the densely populated island.

Taiwan is 14,000 square miles (36,000 square kilometers) — about the same size as Maryland — but has a population around four times as large, with approximately 23 million people living there, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. This places a heavy burden on the island's agricultural industry to provide enough food for everyone on the island, especially as large parts of the landmass are covered by mountains and rainforest.

Researchers estimate that there is only around 3,200 square feet (300 square meters) of Taiwanese farmland per citizen, which is around two-thirds the size of a basketball court, according to the Earth Observatory. This is around 10 times less than the equivalent for U.S. citizens.

The majority of the island's food is produced within Yunlin County, which is situated around halfway along the Chianan Plain, a lengthy strip of flat terrain that hugs Taiwan's west coast. Just under half of the county is visible in the satellite image, which spans roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) across.

The flat ground in Yunlin County, as well as access to water from the island's largest river, the Zhuoshui (visible across the top of the image), makes it an ideal place to grow a variety of different crops, including "rice, sweet potatoes, peanuts, corn, sugarcane, garlic, scallions, coffee, fruit, and leafy greens," Earth Observatory representatives wrote.

The average size of a farm in Yunlin County is under 100,000 square feet (10,000 square m), which is around 90 times smaller than the average U.S. farm. As a result, the region looks like a giant patchwork of tens of thousands of irregular cuboids when viewed from above.

The sizes of Taiwanese farms are restricted by longstanding legislation that limits the amount of land any individual can own, according to the Earth Observatory. Most of the farms are passed down from generation to generation.

While Yunlin County's agricultural mosaic is fairly consistent across this image, two main areas stand out from the rest (see below).

The first outlying region is a swarm of blue and turquoise rectangles surrounding the town of Xiluo in the upper right of the image (just below the river). These farms are covered with plastic shade nets, which shelter them from harsh sunlight in the summer and monsoon-like rains in the wet season

The second and perhaps most noticeable anomaly is a cluster of much larger, lightly colored farms near the town of Baozhong (bottom left of the photo). These are sugarcane fields, left over from when Japan controlled Taiwan between 1895 and 1945.

A large portion of the Chianan Plain was used to grow sugarcane by the Japanese, who also constructed railway lines to move the crop across the island. However, most of these fields have since been repurposed, and all but one of the railway lines have fallen out of use.

In addition to growing crops, these small farms are used to rear livestock, including chickens, cattle and "millions of pigs," according to the Earth Observatory.

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