In 1980 the late Lin Jinpao, who conducted research into the Amis, published A Survey of the Urban Aborigines in Northern Taiwan. The book documents that half of the miners working the Haishan coal mine in Taipei County's Tucheng were Amis, and most of them were related to each other.
已過世的阿美族民間學者林金泡，在 1980 年出版的《北區都市山胞生活狀況調查研究》裡描述，光是北縣土城的海山煤礦裡，就有二分之一是阿美族人，且多有親戚關係。