Shifen Old Street is the largest and busiest old street on the Pingxi Railway line, famous for setting off lanterns into the sky, and for visiting the famous Shifen Waterfall nearby. Here one can enjoy delicious food, beautiful scenery, and learn about the mining history of the area. The sky lanterns have become a major environmental issue, but because of the allure to tourists the practice doesn't seem like it will end soon.

The town of Shifen, which was originally named for the ten families that lived there in the Qing Dynasty, who needed ten portions of goods.

Shifen Train station was completed in1918 and is the biggest train station on the Pingxi Railway line. During its heyday, it had the largest coal mining operation and largest population in Pingxi District of New Taipei.
After the coal industry died down in the 1970s, tourism has taken its place as the major industry in the area.

The practice of lighting off sky lanterns in Taiwan began in Shifen, when during the Qing Dynasty local villagers would flee into the mountains during raids from bandits. Once the bandits had left, the remaining villagers sent sky lanterns into the air to let the fleeing villagers know that it was safe to come down from the mountains.

The people of Shifen send off sky lanterns as a symbol of peace, and celebrate every year during Lantern Festival , a Chinese holiday.

Setting off sky lanterns as a tourist attraction began in the 1990's and you can find people lighting off lanterns every day from Shifen.

Because of the hundreds of sky lanterns set off every day, this creates an environmental problem with lantern trash piling around the forests and mountains of Pingxi District. The local people and volunteers help to clean up, but because of the tourism allure associated with lighting off the sky lanterns, it seems that this practice is not going
away anytime soon.