Taiwan Historic Streets and Commercial Districts

30-second overview: Taiwan has more than 30 well-preserved historic streets. From Dihua Street, which opened for business in 1851; to Lukang, part of the Qing-era saying "One Prefecture, Two Lukang, Three Mengjia"; to Jiufen, which boomed on gold mining and was later reborn through cinema; to Sanxia Old Street, known as "Taiwan's most beautiful Baroque shophouse street." Each street is a stretch of frozen time, recording the economic rhythms, architectural aesthetics, and everyday lives of different eras.

How Historic Streets Came to Be

The formation of Taiwan's historic streets almost always comes down to three things: waterways, local produce, and markets.

During the Qing dynasty, Taiwan's economy was centered on agricultural trade, and port towns naturally prospered first. The old saying "One Prefecture, Two Lukang, Three Mengjia" (一府二鹿三艋舺) describes the ranking of the three major commercial centers during the Qing period: Tainan Prefecture, Lukang, and Menghua (Mengjia, present-day Wanhua)—all of them ports. Merchant ships brought people, people brought shops, and shops extended inland from the wharves, forming the earliest "streets."

During the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945), the Governor-General's office implemented "city correction" (市區改正) projects, widening and straightening the originally winding, narrow streets, and enforcing regulations on building façade heights, arcade (piloti) dimensions, and sanitation facilities. This is why many buildings on Taiwan's historic streets, though built by Hoklo settlers, feature Baroque carved column heads on their façades—a European street aesthetic introduced by the Japanese colonial government, interpreted in its own way by local craftsmen, ultimately becoming a uniquely "Taiwanese Baroque."

Ten Historic Streets You Should Know

Dihua Street (Dadaocheng, Taipei): The Starting Point of Taipei Commerce

The earliest shops on Dihua Street appeared in 1851 (the first year of the Xianfeng reign), more than thirty years before Taipei was formally established as a walled city. In 1853, Tong'an people from Quanzhou who had lost the "Upper-Lower Suburb Conflict" (頂下郊拼) in Mengjia fled to Dadaocheng and built shops there, forming the "Middle Street" (中街).

During the Japanese era, Dihua Street was dominated by dry goods and tea shops, later joined by the rice, cloth, and traditional Chinese medicine trades. From simple Hoklo-style storefronts to ornate Baroque-decorated façades, the architecture along the entire street records a century of commercial change in Taipei.

What to see today:

• New Year's Goods Street (年貨大街): The annual pre-Lunar New Year market is Taipei's liveliest traditional bazaar
• Yongle Market (永樂市場): The largest fabric wholesale center in Taiwan
• Xia-Hai City God Temple (霞海城隍廟): Built in 1859, famous for its matchmaking deity (月老), attracting large numbers of international visitors
• In recent years, many creative brands and coffee shops have moved in, and the blending of old and new has made the district a model of urban renewal in Taipei

Sources: Taiwan Tourism Bureau — Dihua Street; Wikipedia — Dihua Street

Lukang Historic Street (Changhua): Taiwan's Second-Largest City in the Qing Dynasty

In the 49th year of the Qianlong reign (1784), Lukang was officially opened as a port for cross-strait trade with Zhangzhou's Hanjiang. The period from the 50th year of Qianlong to the 30th year of Daoguang (approximately 1785–1850) was the golden age of Lukang's commerce, with a population that once reached tens of thousands, making it the second-largest city in Taiwan.

However, silting of the harbor caused Lukang to lose its shipping function and decline—yet this very decline preserved a large number of historic buildings from the destructive forces of modern development.

What to see today:

Yaolin Street and Putou Street comprise Lukang's most complete collection of Qing-era Hoklo architecture—red-brick alleyways and grey-tiled urn walls are popular spots for photos. The "Touching Breasts Alley" (摸乳巷), at its narrowest point only about 70 centimeters wide, is nearly 200 years old; its original name may have been a homophone of "Menglin Lane" (夢麟巷)¹.

• Lukang Longshan Temple: A national historic site, built in 1786, widely regarded as the most beautiful Qing-dynasty temple building in Taiwan
• Lukang Tianhou Temple: Dedicated to the Meizhou Mazu, it is one of Taiwan's two great Mazu temples alongside Beigang Chaotian Temple
• Traditional crafts: Wood carving, tinware, confectionery, and pastry-making remain active on the old street

Sources: Changhua County Tourism Website — Lukang Old Street; Luohanmen historical records

Jiufen Historic Street (Ruifang, New Taipei): A Mountain Town Legend from Gold Mines to Cinema

Jiufen's story begins in 1890. When Liu Mingchuan built the railway from Keelung to Taipei, construction workers discovered alluvial gold in the Badu stretch of the Keelung River. Prospectors followed the river upstream and in 1893 found the Small Gold Melon (小金瓜) vein in the Jiufen hills; in 1894, the main deposit at Jinguashan was discovered—and the once-quiet Keelung Mountain was suddenly teeming with people.

Gold mining peaked during the Japanese colonial era, and Jiufen's population surged. Houses were packed densely up the mountainside, forming a unique "mountain town" streetscape along steep stone steps. In the 1960s, the mines were exhausted, and Jiufen rapidly declined, nearly forgotten by the world.

The turning point came in 1989: Hou Hsiao-hsien's film A City of Sadness (悲情城市) was shot in Jiufen. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, bringing Jiufen back into the world's view. Later, some drew a connection between Jiufen and the bathhouse in Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (though Miyazaki himself denied it), and Jiufen became a must-visit Taiwan destination for international tourists.

What to see today:

The stone steps of Qichi Road are Jiufen's most iconic scene, with red lanterns hanging high on both sides of the teahouses; A-Mei Teahouse is the building that appears most frequently in tourist photos².

• Jishan Street: The main commercial street, with snacks (taro balls, grass rice cakes, fish balls) and souvenirs
• Shengping Theater: A theater built in 1934, now restored as an exhibition space
• Tourism challenges: Holiday crowds and chronic traffic congestion are long-standing problems

Sources: Wikipedia — Jiufen; Wikipedia — A City of Sadness; NTU Digital Archives of Geological Sciences — Gold Mining History of Jinguashan and Jiufen

Sanxia Historic Street (Sanxia, New Taipei): Taiwan's Most Beautiful Baroque Shophouses

Sanxia Old Street has a dramatic origin story: in 1895, Sanxia residents burned the street in resistance against the Japanese army, and the entire street was reduced to ashes. It was subsequently rebuilt by the residents themselves. In 1916 (Taishō 5), the Japanese government led a "city correction" project, and residents at their own expense transformed the traditional shophouses into European-style façades—Greek columns, Roman arches, and Baroque ornamentation, blending Western architectural elements, Japanese family crests, and Han Chinese cultural motifs.

This roughly 200-meter stretch of the southern section of Minquan Street, with its continuous red-brick arcade, is the most complete collection of Japanese-era Baroque shophouse architecture in Taiwan. In 2007, at the FIABCI Prix d'Excellence Awards in Barcelona, the "Sanxia Old Street Renovation" won the Silver Award in the Public Sector and Special Architecture category.

What to see today:

The continuous arcade arches are Sanxia Old Street's most distinctive feature. Cingshuei Zushih Temple (清水祖師廟), overseen by renowned Taiwanese painter Li Mei-shu (reconstruction began in 1947 and continued until his death in 1983), is celebrated for its exquisite stone and wood carvings and is hailed as an "Oriental Palace of Art"³.

• Indigo dyeing craft: Sanxia was once the largest dyeing center in northern Taiwan; DIY workshops are now available
• Golden Horn Pastries (金牛角麵包): The signature souvenir of Sanxia Old Street

Sources: Taiwan Tourism Bureau — Sanxia Old Street; Wikipedia — Sanxia Old Street; New Taipei City Sanxia District Office

Daxi Historic Street (Daxi, Taoyuan): Baroque Façades and the Cult of Lord Guan

The building ensemble of Daxi Old Street began in 1912 (the first year of the Taishō era), when the Taiwan Governor-General's office implemented the "Dakan Street City Correction Plan," widening roads and prompting residents to add ornate Baroque-style pediment decorations to the façades of their newly built shophouses.

During the Qing dynasty, Daxi's location on the Dahan River made it a distribution center for camphor, tea, timber, and coal. British, German, and Spanish merchants all established shops there, with trading houses and tea shops lining the streets. Today, the commercial function has shifted to tourism, but those pediment façades adorned with stone carvings and clay sculptures remain intact.

What to see today:

Heping Road, Zhongshan Road, and Zhongyang Road are the three streets with the best-preserved historic shophouse buildings. Daxi dried tofu is the old street's most iconic specialty, produced by several century-old shops⁴.

• Daxi Daxi (大溪大禧): The annual procession celebrating the birthday of Lord Guan (Guan Sheng Di Jun) on the 24th day of the sixth lunar month is Daxi's grandest folk festival, designated by the Ministry of Culture as one of Taiwan's "Intangible Cultural Assets"
• Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum: A concept that treats the entire street district as a museum, connecting historic buildings with local industries

Sources: Wikipedia — Daxi Old Street; Taoyuan Tourism Website

Tamsui Historic Street (Tamsui, New Taipei): Four Hundred Years of River-Mouth Scenery

Tamsui's history can be traced back to 1628, when the Spanish built "Fort Santo Domingo" (聖多明哥城); in 1642, the Dutch expelled the Spanish and rebuilt on the same site—this is today's Fort San Domingo (紅毛城, so named because Hoklo speakers referred to the Dutch as "red-haired foreigners"). In 1867, the British leased Fort San Domingo and added a consulate on the east side.

Tamsui Old Street generally refers to the stretch along Zhongzheng Road (from the ferry pier to the intersection with Zhongshan Road), as well as Chongjian Street on the hillside. Chongjian Street is the oldest street in Tamsui, and many wooden and brick old houses still line both sides.

What to see today:

A-gei (阿給) is Tamsui's signature snack—fried tofu skin stuffed with sautéed glass noodles and sealed with fish paste, steamed, and the name derives from the Japanese word aburaage (油揚げ); the sunset over the Tamsui River is one of the most popular scenic spots in the Taipei metropolitan area⁵.

• Iron eggs, fish balls, fish crackers: Classic old street snacks
• Fort San Domingo + Little White House + Hobe Battery: Three historic sites linked together, recording four hundred years of Tamsui's international trade history
• Convenient transportation: Directly accessible at the terminal station of the MRT Tamsui Line

Sources: Taiwan Tourism Bureau — Fort San Domingo, Tamsui; New Taipei City Tourism Website — Tamsui Old Street; Tamsui Wiki

Anping Historic Street (Tainan): The Oldest Street in Taiwan

Anping Old Street (Yanping Street) was the first street built by the Dutch in Anping, dating back to the 1620s during the Dutch colonial period. The early street was only wide enough for people and pushcarts, and the blocks were narrow. The buildings here blend Dutch, Qing, and Japanese styles, making it one of the street districts with the richest historical layering in Taiwan.

What to see today:

Anping Fort (the site of Fort Zeelandia) is the earliest castle in Taiwan, built by the Dutch in 1624. The sword lion (劍獅) culture is a unique Anping apotropaic decoration, said to originate from military garrison customs during the Koxinga period, and has now become a cultural symbol of Anping⁶.

• Alley exploration: Jasmine Lane, Rouge Lane, and other intricate small lanes preserve the character of an old-style settlement
• Snacks: Shrimp crackers, oyster omelets, tofu pudding, and Anping shrimp rolls are all local classics
• Tait & Co. Merchant House: A British trading post established in 1867, now a historical exhibition space

Sources: Tainan Tourism Website — Anping Old Street

Beipu Historic Street (Beipu, Hsinchu): The Historic Street with the Highest Density of Historic Sites in Taiwan

Beipu Old Street is only about 200 meters long, yet it contains 7 historic sites, giving it the highest density of historic sites of any old street in Taiwan. It was the busiest commercial center in Beipu during the Qing dynasty and is an important testament to the history of Hakka settlement and land reclamation.

The Guangfu Public Hall (金廣福公館, a national historic site, 1835) records the history of joint land reclamation by early Hoklo and Hakka settlers, while Tianshui Hall (天水堂) is the ancestral home of the Chiang family; the two are jointly designated as a national historic site.

• Chiang A-hsin Western-style Mansion: Built by a wealthy tea merchant during the Japanese era, a masterpiece of Sino-Western architecture
• Citian Temple: A county-level historic site and the spiritual center of the old street
• Hakka cuisine: Authentic lei tea, dried persimmons, and Hakka rice noodles
• The entire street has no chain stores, preserving the pure atmosphere of a Hakka settlement

Sources: Taiwan Tourism Bureau — Beipu Old Street

Cishan Historic Street (Cishan, Kaohsiung): Memories of the Banana Kingdom

Cishan was formerly known as "Ciwi" (旗尾) and was already an important agricultural area in southern Taiwan during the Qing dynasty. During the Japanese colonial era, with the rise of the sugar and banana industries, Cishan became an economic hub of the Kaohsiung mountain line. In the 1950s and 1960s, Cishan bananas were exported in large quantities to Japan, earning Taiwan substantial foreign exchange—the title "Banana Kingdom" originated here.

What to see today:

Cishan Old Street preserves the rare streetscape of Baroque-style red-brick buildings coexisting with sandstone arched arcade pavilions. Cishan Station (now the Sugar Railway Story Museum) was a station on the Japanese-era Ciwi Line sugar railway, now restored as a cultural space⁷.

• Cishan Butokuden: A Japanese-era martial arts training hall
• Banana cake, banana egg rolls: Local souvenirs dubbed the Taiwanese version of "Tokyo Banana"
• In recent years, it has at times surpassed Jiufen to become the most-visited old street according to Tourism Bureau statistics

Sources: Kaohsiung Tourism Website — Cishan Old Street

Neiwan Historic Street (Hengshan, Hsinchu): Nostalgia in a Hakka Mountain Town

Neiwan is located in Hengshan Township, Hsinchu County, and its residents are predominantly Hakka. During the Japanese colonial era, a railway station was established to serve the needs of the timber and coal transport industries, allowing the settlement to develop.

What to see today:

Neiwan Station is the terminal station of the Neiwan Line railway, and the wooden station building itself is a nostalgic attraction. The adjacent Neiwan Theater, built in the 1950s, now serves as a restaurant and exhibition space⁸.

• Neiwan Suspension Bridge: A scenic walkway spanning the Youluo River
• Liu Hsing-chin comics: Characters by local cartoonist Liu Hsing-chin—"Auntie" (大嬸婆) and "Brother Ah-San" (阿三哥)—are found all over the street
• Hakka snacks: Wild ginger flower meat zongzi, purple jade vegetable buns, Hakka mochi, and lei tea smoothies

Sources: TravelKing — Neiwan Old Street

The Architectural Code of Taiwan's Historic Streets

Walking into a Taiwan historic street, the buildings themselves are a history textbook. The architectural styles of Taiwan's historic streets fall into three main categories: Qing-dynasty Hoklo shophouses, Japanese-era Taiwanese Baroque, and the arcade (亭仔腳) design that runs through both periods.

These three styles often appear simultaneously on a single street, reflecting the layering of architectural ideas from different eras. Learning to read these architectural vocabularies is the first step to understanding Taiwan's historic streets⁸.

Hoklo shophouses (Qing dynasty): Narrow frontage, deep floor plan—"bamboo-pole houses" (竹竿厝)—with a shop on the ground floor and living quarters on the second. Red-brick load-bearing walls, gable roofs with swallowtail ridges, and doorways possibly decorated with stone carvings or cut-porcelain ornamentation.

Taiwanese Baroque (Japanese era): A product of the "city correction" projects carried out by the Japanese government. The deep floor plan of the shophouses was retained, but the façades were redesigned in a European style—symmetrical compositions, classical columns, arched doorways, and floral motifs. Materials evolved from traditional brick and wood to reinforced concrete and pebble-dash (洗石子) finishes. Every pediment was the owner's calling card: the more elaborate, the better the business. The Baroque shophouses of Sanxia, Daxi, and Cishan are the most representative.

Arcades (亭仔腳): The most practical architectural element of Taiwan's historic streets. A public corridor formed by setting back the ground floor, providing shade from the sun and shelter from rain, and also serving as an extension of commercial activity. This design both adapts to the subtropical climate and creates a uniquely Taiwanese sense of street space.

The role of traditional craftsmen: The fine ornamentation of Taiwanese Baroque is backed by generations of accumulated craftsmanship. Clay sculptors were responsible for the floral and bird reliefs on the pediments, pebble-dash artisans polished surfaces to imitate stone textures, and painters used mineral pigments to depict folk tales. Some of these skills have been sustained under the Ministry of Culture's "Traditional Arts Preserver" certification system, but a generational succession gap is a widespread problem—once an old building is damaged, it is often difficult to find craftsmen who understand the original techniques. When Sanxia Old Street launched its building façade restoration project in 2004, it specifically recruited elderly masters familiar with Japanese-era pebble-dash techniques to assist; in subsequent restorations, it has been difficult to find the same team.

Architectural details can also help date a historic street's construction: pebble-dash walls are most commonly seen from the 1920s–30s, exposed brickwork from the Qing dynasty through the 1910s, and RC concrete frames became widespread after the 1930s. Family crests and trade symbols on the pediments—scissors for the cloth trade, abaci for money shops—are visual entry points for reading the commercial history of a historic street.

The Dilemma of Preservation

The greatest challenge facing Taiwan's historic streets is commercial homogenization, not simply a matter of architectural conservation.

When a historic street becomes a tourist attraction, rents rise, and original local shops are replaced by chain brands or cookie-cutter "old street snacks." You'll find that the things sold on historic streets from north to south are increasingly the same—sausages, grilled squid, marble soda. Historic streets become night markets in historic-building shells.

A relatively successful case is Dihua Street: through urban renewal and creative-industry placement, it has preserved the traditional wholesale dry-goods commerce while introducing independent brands, design studios, and coffee shops, creating a district ecosystem where old and new coexist. Lukang, through the continuation of traditional crafts (wood carving, tinware), has maintained the cultural distinctiveness of its old street.

Another dimension of the challenge is tourism carrying capacity. Holiday crowds in Jiufen have seriously affected the quality of life for local residents and the visitor experience, and traffic congestion is a long-standing, unresolved problem. The New Taipei City Government has studied traffic control measures multiple times, including restricting private car entry on weekends and promoting shuttle buses, but due to merchant protests and enforcement difficulties, results have been limited.

Government preservation mechanisms: The Ministry of Culture promotes historic street revitalization through the "Historic District Preservation and Regeneration Program," including building exterior renovation subsidies (covering up to 60% of renovation costs), building façade regulation and control, arcade clearance improvement subsidies, and traditional craftsperson certification and succession subsidies. Tainan City's designation of the Anping old town as a "Historic Scenic District" under unified management is one of the more complete local preservation systems.

New thinking on design intervention: The model of "design entering historic districts" has gained attention in recent years. Shennong Street in Tainan is not a major historic street, but through artist residencies and nighttime lighting projects, it has formed a creative cluster that attracts independent travelers and avoids the homogenization pressure of low-price competition. The Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum's concept of "the entire street district is a museum" allows building preservation to coexist with residents' daily lives and is seen as a model for balancing cultural and residential quality. How to strike a balance between tourism economics and cultural preservation is a question every historic street faces. Scholars point out that successful historic street preservation is not about "freezing time" but about keeping the district inhabited and lived-in—because a true sense of history comes from the daily accumulation of generations, not from museum-style set restoration.

Further Reading

• Bureau of Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Culture — Historic Architecture Database: Searchable database of registered historic buildings and sites across Taiwan
• Daxi Wood Art Ecomuseum: A model case of cultural preservation treating an entire street district as a museum
• Lukang Folk Arts Museum: Permanent exhibitions of Qing-era folk crafts and traditional architecture

References