Notable characteristics include mountain wilderness, four villages, waterfalls, high altitude tea plantations, the Alishan Forest Railway, and a number of hiking trails.

Alishan, along with Taroko Gorge and Sun Moon Lake, is one of Taiwan's most popular scenic attractions.

Ethnic Han Chinese settlers first settled on the plains near modern-day Chiayi as early as the late Ming Dynasty (around the mid-17th century), but did not move into the mountains until the late 18th century, establishing the towns of Ruili (瑞里), Ruifeng (瑞峰), Xiding (隙頂), and Fenqihu (奮起湖).

This led to the development of the logging industry in the area and the export of local cypress and Taiwania wood.

Plans were even drawn up to incorporate the area into the new Niitaka (New Highest) Arisan National Park (新高阿里山国立公園).

[citation needed] With the exhaustion of forest resources by the 1970s, domestic and international tourism overtook logging to become the primary economic activity in the area.

The tourism industry continued to expand with the completion of the Alishan highway in the 1980s, displacing the railroad as the primary mode of transportation up the mountain.

[11] In order to provide a more comfortable recreation experience for visitors, the Chiayi Forestry Administration has completed reconstructions such as the separation of pedestrian and vehicular roads, the improvement of facilities at the Visitor Service Center, and the constructions of the landscape around the Alishan sacred tree, etc.

[12] Since August 2019, China has imposed a ban on the free flow of Chinese visitors and subsequently increased the number of tour groups, which has impacted the entire tourism industry in Taiwan.

Fenqihu (奮起湖) is a small town of low wooden buildings built into the mountainside at 1,400 meters, midpoint of the Alishan Forest Railway.