Kaohsiung City: In 1979, the Year It Became a Special Municipality, Eight Kaohsiung People Were Held in a Taipei Prison

30-second overview: On July 1, 1979, Kaohsiung was upgraded to become Taiwan's second special municipality, after Taipei in 1967. On December 10 of the same year, Human Rights Day, a speech organized by Formosa Magazine at the Dagangpu Roundabout turned into a clash under tear gas. On April 18, 1980, a military court handed down its verdicts: Shih Ming-teh received a life sentence; Huang Hsin-chieh received fourteen years; Yao Chia-wen, Chang Chun-hung, Lin Yi-hsiung, Annette Lu, Chen Chu, and Lin Hung-hsuan each received twelve-year prison terms. In the early morning of February 28, 1980, at the Lin family home at No. 16, Lane 31, Section 3, Xinyi Road, Taipei, Lin Yi-hsiung's mother and twin daughters were murdered. Three wounds, all tied to Kaohsiung, this newly upgraded special municipality. Its 2.71 million people are spread across 38 districts, with a sandbar, Bunun communities, steelmaking smokestacks, and an aluminum-alloy roof all sharing the administrative coordinates of one special municipality. This article argues that Kaohsiung is a wound in Taiwan's democracy and the physical mass of the island's industrialization.

4:30 a.m., Qianzhen Fishing Harbor

If you ask someone from Kaohsiung, "When is Kaohsiung at its most captivating?" they will not tell you Liuhe Night Market. Liuhe Night Market is for tourists. They may tell you Qianzhen Fishing Harbor at 4:30 in the morning, or the Gushan ferry at 5 a.m.

Qianzhen Fishing Harbor is in Qianzhen District, Taiwan's largest distant-water fishing base. Tuna longliners depart from here for the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, and the South Pacific, returning only after six months to a year. Most fishery workers are Indonesian or Filipino, and their speech mixes Taiwanese Hokkien, English, and their own mother tongues. On unloading days, the harbor fills with frozen tuna, bodies larger than people, carried one by one onto the auction floor. The tuna that a Taipei sushi restaurant will serve tonight may have been caught two weeks ago off the coast of Madagascar.

The Gushan ferry runs every three minutes. From Gushan to Cijin, the trip takes five minutes and costs NT$40. The first scheduled departure is at 6 a.m., but office workers are already lining up before dawn. Cijin has 28,000 residents and no bridge connecting it to the main island; the Cross-Harbor Tunnel is for vehicles. Ferries are the only link between this sandbar and downtown Kaohsiung.

This is the most contemporary evidence of Kaohsiung as a port city. The historical glory of becoming a special municipality in 1979, the industrial glory of China Steel's establishment in 1971, and the shipping glory of ranking as the world's third-largest container port for seven consecutive years from 1993 to 1999 are all in the past. But while the capital is still asleep, Kaohsiung has already begun moving things for the whole world.

Aerial view of the commercial area in the Port of Kaohsiung's First Harbor, 2021. From harbor construction planning in 1899, the arrival of the export processing zone in 1968, and seven consecutive years as the world's third-largest container port from 1993 to 1999, to 2021, it remained Taiwan's largest commercial port.
Commercial area of the Port of Kaohsiung's First Harbor, 2021. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA via Wikimedia.

Takau, Takao, Kaohsiung: The 1920 Renaming

Four hundred years ago, at the foot of Takau Mountain, today's Shoushan, there was a Makatao community surrounded by bamboo groves. Its people called it "Takau" in a sound approximated through Taiwanese Hokkien, meaning "bamboo forest"¹. Han Chinese began arriving after the Qing court established Fengshan County in 1684. It was first a fishing village, then a harbor.

After the 1858 Treaty of Tianjin, Takau opened as a port in 1863. The British consulate was established at Shaochuantou, today's Gushan, and Takau became, together with Xiamen and Fuzhou, one of the treaty ports the Qing court opened to the great powers. In 1899, Meiji 32, Gotō Shinpei, the fourth Civil Administrator under Japanese rule, inspected southern Taiwan and decided to develop Takau Harbor. Funds were insufficient, and the project dragged on until the first phase of harbor construction officially began in 1908².

In October 1920, Den Kenjirō, the eighth Governor-General under Japanese rule, abolished the administrative halls and established prefectures, renaming "Takau Street" as "Takao Street," written in Chinese characters as "Kaohsiung." The two characters 高雄 were chosen for their Japanese near-homophony with takao. Whether they were related to Mount Takao in Kyoto remains debated among scholars¹. From that moment, however, the city was no longer called Takau.

In 1924, Taishō 13, Takao Street was upgraded to "Kaohsiung City." The city hall was located at the site of today's Daitian Temple on Gubo Street in Yancheng District. At the time of city establishment, the population exceeded 35,000. By 1940, it had grown to 160,000, making Kaohsiung Taiwan's second-largest city after Taipei¹. Kaohsiung's modernization under Japanese rule centered on Hamasen, a Taiwanese transliteration of the Japanese hama-sen, or "harbor railway line." Yancheng, Gushan, Zuoying, and Lingya were developed in succession, while the city hall, banks, and trading firms clustered in Hamasen and Yancheng.

Curator's note: The name "Takau" is no longer used by most Kaohsiung people today, but it is embedded in the texture of place names and food. The name "Shoushan" for Takau Mountain was introduced after Crown Prince Hirohito's visit in 1923 during the Japanese period. Today's "Chaishan," known for its macaques, is another folk name for Shoushan. The sound "Takau" remains in early documents from the Tainan-Kaohsiung corridor, in the oral memory of the Makatao before Sinicization, and in the post-2000 return of cultural-history workers who used "Takau" as a brand, such as the Takau Historical and Cultural Association and Takau Kaohsiung History and Culture Web, to resist the Taishō-era name. It takes a city a hundred years to change its name once; changing that name back may take another hundred years.

The Army Came Down From Shoushan; It Was March 1947

After the events of February 28, 1947 broke out in Taipei, they spread to Kaohsiung in early March. The commander of Kaohsiung Fortress at the time was Peng Meng-chi, 1908-1997, a native of Wuchang, Hubei, a lieutenant general in the army, stationed at Shoushan.

"As early as March 4, Kaohsiung Fortress Command commander Peng Meng-chi had already decided to adopt military suppression"³. On the morning of March 6, seven negotiating representatives, including Kaohsiung mayor Huang Chung-tu and city council speaker Peng Ching-kao, father of surgeon Peng Ming-min, went to Shoushan as arranged to negotiate a peaceful resolution with Peng Meng-chi. "As soon as the group entered the meeting room, Tu Kuang-ming, Fan Tsang-jung, and Tseng Feng-ming were arrested"³.

"After seizing the negotiating representatives, Peng Meng-chi decided to move up the suppression scheduled for the 7th, sending troops down the mountain at 2 p.m. that afternoon"³.

What happened after 2 p.m. was recorded in these passages:

"Troops attacked Kaohsiung Railway Station from Sankuaicuo. People and passengers in front of the station scattered in panic, and the troops also opened fire on passengers hiding in the underpass, causing countless deaths and injuries"³.

"The troops attacking city hall first threw grenades, then killed anyone they saw. Representatives from all sectors and citizens waiting in front of city hall for news of the negotiations... suffered heavy casualties, with about fifty or sixty people killed"³.

The Battle to Defend Kaohsiung Senior High School was another side of this massacre. "On March 4, students established a self-defense unit, the Kaohsiung Senior High School Self-Defense Unit, led by Taiwan Provincial Kaohsiung First Senior High School, now Kaohsiung Senior High School... Its purpose was to maintain order around the school and use the school as a temporary shelter to protect mainlanders whose lives were threatened"³. A group of high school students sheltered attacked mainlander neighbors inside the school while using books as shields to resist the army.

The three representatives Tu Kuang-ming, Fan Tsang-jung, and Tseng Feng-ming were executed by firing squad at Kaohsiung Fortress on March 9. Afterward, Peng Meng-chi was promoted and heavily used by Chiang Kai-shek. In 1957, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Army; in 1966, he was promoted to first-rank army general. In 1947 Kaohsiung, his title was "the Butcher of Kaohsiung." The same person later rose all the way through Taiwan's military-political system.

This was a wound Kaohsiung already carried before the 1979 Formosa Incident.

1968 Export Processing Zone, 1971 China Steel, 1973 Linyuan Petrochemicals

Twenty years passed. By the late 1960s, Kaohsiung had become another city.

"In December 1966, Taiwan passed the Statute for the Establishment of Export Processing Zones, selecting Qianzhen District in the Kaohsiung harbor area for the establishment of the Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone"⁴. This was Taiwan's first export processing zone and one of the earliest in the world, combining the functions of a free trade zone and an industrial district, with tax incentives, one-stop services, and rapid customs clearance. The first factory moved in in 1968. Most of its workers were young women from Tainan, Pingtung, and Chiayi, earning monthly wages of just over NT$1,000 and living in dormitory rooms for four or eight. That generation later came to be called the "export processing zone aunties." Today, their grandchildren work at TSMC.

The refinery was earlier still. CPC's Kaohsiung Refinery, located at the foot of Banpingshan in Nanzi District, covered 262 hectares. Its predecessor was the Kaohsiung site of the Japanese Imperial Navy's Sixth Fuel Plant during World War II. It was taken over, repaired, and put into operation by CPC in 1947. "The first naphtha cracker, No. 1 Naphtha Cracker, began operation in 1968 and closed in 1990; the second naphtha cracker began operation in 1975 and closed in 1994; the fifth naphtha cracker began operation in 1994 and closed in 2015"⁵. The refinery "successively housed more than forty large plants, including No. 1, No. 2, and No. 5 Naphtha Crackers, and became the largest officially recognized polluted area"⁵.

On December 3, 1971, China Steel Corporation was formally established⁶. The first oil crisis of 1973 crashed the global economy, and Chiang Ching-kuo responded by proposing the Ten Major Construction Projects, incorporating China Steel among them. The first phase of construction was completed in 1977, and steel production began. China Steel remains in Xiaogang today, with annual crude steel production of about 10 million metric tons. Its main products are steel plate, bars and wire rods, hot-rolled steel, and cold-rolled steel⁶. The supporting Linyuan Petrochemical Industrial Park was established in 1973. Together with the Nanzi refinery and Xiaogang's China Steel, it formed the three heaviest gears of Taiwan's postwar heavy industry.

In 1965, the government adopted the "Guidelines for Encouraging the Import and Processing of Old Ships," and shipbreaking began in Qianzhen and Caoya. "Every day, roughly 20,000 workers dismantled ships at the docks, breaking down as much as 10,000 tons of steel plate on average each day, earning Taiwan the reputation of the world's number-one 'shipbreaking kingdom'"⁷. In 1973, Kaohsiung recorded the world's largest shipbreaking volume. In 1986, the Canari oil tanker exploded in the Daren Temple shipbreaking industrial zone because of residual oil at the bottom of the hold, killing 16 people and injuring more than 100. "In 1989, the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau reclaimed the Daren shipbreaking zone and converted it into the Fifth Container Terminal. In 1990, the shipbreaking industry was officially forced to exit midway"⁷. A world-leading industry disappeared in twenty years.

✦ "It successively housed more than forty large plants, including No. 1, No. 2, and No. 5 Naphtha Crackers, and became the largest officially recognized polluted area." (The Reporter, "The Undying Petrochemical Zombie"⁵)

Kaohsiung residents have sharply divided memories of this history. From 1971 through the 1980s, heavy industry was Kaohsiung's pride and its wage packet. But during the same period, residents of Houjing began to notice that the ash falling on their roofs was unusually thick, and fishers in Dalinpu began to find fewer fish in their nets. Then came 1987.

Houjing's Ballot: 61% to 39%

"In June 1987, CPC's 'Fifth Naphtha Cracker' plan was formally announced in the media"⁸. When Houjing residents learned that the government wanted to add the fifth naphtha cracker on top of the existing first and second crackers, they immediately organized.

"On August 5, 1987, a village meeting was held and the 'Self-Help Committee Against the Fifth Naphtha Cracker' was established"⁸. In August, residents began a long-term blockade of the plant, taking shifts guarding CPC's front gate to prevent construction vehicles from entering. This movement unfolded in the same year martial law was lifted and became Taiwan's first large-scale postwar environmental protest.

"On May 6, 1990, Taiwan's first referendum on the construction of the fifth naphtha cracker was held. The result: turnout was 66%, and firm opponents of the fifth naphtha cracker won with 4,499 votes, or 61%, against 2,900 votes for those agreeing to negotiate"⁸.

The referendum did not stop the fifth naphtha cracker.

"On September 14, 1990, Premier Hau Pei-tsun promised that CPC would relocate the plant after 25 years and provide Houjing residents with a NT$1.5 billion feedback fund, setting Taiwan's record for the highest anti-pollution compensation fund"⁸. Eight days later, "on September 22, 1990, Minister of Economic Affairs Vincent Siew announced that construction of the fifth naphtha cracker would begin"⁸.

Twenty-five years after Hau Pei-tsun's promise was exactly 2015. The fifth naphtha cracker really did cease operations on November 1, 2015. The promise was fulfilled, but an entire generation of Houjing residents grew up breathing the air of the fifth naphtha cracker. From the 1987 plant blockade to the 2015 shutdown, this movement is known as the "28-year anti-fifth-naphtha-cracker movement"⁸.

Curator's note: Standard narratives of environmental movements focus on political alignments such as "green governance." But the story of Houjing's resistance to the fifth naphtha cracker looks more like another structure: these 28 years were the story of a small village trading 25 years of patience for the closure of one factory. There was no moment of victory in between. Every year was a defeat: the fifth naphtha cracker was still built, the exhaust still emitted, residents' health was still affected. Only after losing into the 25th year did the factory close. The greatest difference between Taiwan's environmental movement and other social movements lies in its timescale: it is counted in "generations," not in "terms of office." After Houjing, Dalinpu spent more than 30 more years protesting and waiting for village relocation⁹. Only in 2016 did Premier Lin Chuan publicly apologize there. Victory is not a movement winning once; it is the next generation no longer having to breathe the same air.

Tear Gas at Dagangpu Roundabout on Human Rights Day

Return to 1979.

On July 1, "Kaohsiung City, originally a provincial city of Taiwan Province, incorporated Xiaogang Township from Kaohsiung County and was at the same time upgraded to a special municipality, becoming Taiwan's second special municipality"¹⁰. The first special municipality was Taipei, upgraded in 1967; Kaohsiung was the second, twelve years later. At the time of its upgrade, it had 11 districts, including the newly created Xiaogang District, and a population of about 1.3 million. It was then southern Taiwan's largest industrial center.

In the same year, 1979, the United States severed diplomatic relations with the Republic of China in January; Kaohsiung was upgraded on July 1; in August, Formosa Magazine was launched, with Huang Hsin-chieh as publisher, Hsu Hsin-liang as president, and Shih Ming-teh as general manager. The magazine became the flagship of the tangwai, or "outside the party," opposition movement. In early December, tangwai figures applied, under the name "Human Rights Memorial Committee," to hold a rally and march in Kaohsiung on December 10, United Nations Human Rights Day, calling for the lifting of martial law and the release of political prisoners. The authorities did not approve it.

On the evening of December 10, "because the originally scheduled venue, Rotary Park, had been sealed off, tangwai figures decided to move toward the large roundabout at the intersection of Zhongshan Road and Zhongzheng Road"¹¹. The rally first gathered near the Xinxing Roundabout on Zhongshan 1st Road in Xinxing District, then shifted to Dagangpu Roundabout, then one of the most important traffic circles in central Kaohsiung.

"March participants near Dagangpu Roundabout were surrounded by thousands of riot police. Under the glare of powerful searchlights, tear gas, and advancing shields, clashes between the two sides finally erupted"¹².

The conflict continued deep into the night. Three days later, at 6 a.m. on December 13, Taiwan Garrison Command launched an island-wide mass arrest. Chen Chu, Lin Yi-hsiung, Annette Lu, and Chang Chun-hung were arrested one after another in the early morning. Huang Hsin-chieh was arrested at the Legislative Yuan on the morning of December 14. Shih Ming-teh fled for 26 days before being arrested in a private home on January 8, 1980. A total of 152 people were implicated.

✦ "On April 18, the military court issued its final verdicts. All eight defendants were found guilty. Shih Ming-teh was sentenced to life imprisonment; Huang Hsin-chieh to fourteen years; and Yao Chia-wen, Chang Chun-hung, Lin Yi-hsiung, Annette Lu, Chen Chu, and Lin Hung-hsuan each to twelve years in prison." (Wikipedia entry on the Formosa Incident¹²)

The great military trial began on March 18, 1980 and lasted nine days. The defendants retained 15 defense lawyers, including Chiang Peng-chien, Frank Hsieh, You Ching, Chen Shui-bian, Su Tseng-chang, and Chang Chun-hsiung. Chen Shui-bian was responsible for defending Huang Hsin-chieh. Afterward, all these lawyers became key figures in the tangwai movement: Chen Shui-bian later became president; Frank Hsieh, Su Tseng-chang, and Chang Chun-hsiung served as premiers; You Ching served as Taipei County magistrate; and Chiang Peng-chien became the first chair of the Democratic Progressive Party.

"The calls to lift martial law, allow the formation of political parties, and comprehensively re-elect central representatives were instead spread more widely through the great military trial"¹³. The Democratic Progressive Party was founded on September 28, 1986, and martial law was lifted on July 15, 1987. From the tear gas at Dagangpu Roundabout in 1979 to the lifting of martial law in 1987, seven and a half years passed: the most critical period in Taiwan's democratic transition. The starting point of this transition was not Taipei. It was Kaohsiung.

February 28, 1980, Xinyi Road, Taipei

Before the great military trial had even begun, events had already fallen into a deeper place.

On February 28, 1980, the anniversary of the February 28 Incident, a bloodshed occurred at the home of Lin Yi-hsiung, who was being detained at the Jingmei military detention center awaiting trial. The location was No. 16, Lane 31, Section 3, Xinyi Road, Taipei, Lin Yi-hsiung's Taipei residence. "Lin Yi-hsiung's mother Yu A-mei, in her sixties, and his seven-year-old twin daughters Lin Liang-chun and Lin Ting-chun were stabbed to death"¹⁴. His nine-year-old eldest daughter Lin Huan-chun was stabbed six times but survived because her schoolbag protected her back.

The Lin family murders occurred in Taipei, not in Kaohsiung and not in Yilan. Lin Yi-hsiung was from Wujie, Yilan. After being arrested in 1979 over the Formosa Incident, he was held at the Jingmei military detention center in Taipei. On the day of the murders, he was at Jingmei, far from the scene. "This case remains unsolved to this day. And because the longest 25-year criminal statute of limitations has now passed, even if the real culprit is found, no conviction can be imposed"¹⁴.

The link between this case and the Kaohsiung Formosa Incident lies in the timeline; geographically, it was 350 kilometers from Kaohsiung. The Lin family murders occurred 19 days before the great military trial opened. They were one of the cruelest pages of the White Terror at the time and a shared wound in the memory of everyone in Taiwan's democracy movement. The tear gas at Dagangpu Roundabout in 1979, the blood on Xinyi Road in Taipei on February 28, 1980, and the military court verdicts of April 18, 1980: three wounds, all tied to Kaohsiung, this newly upgraded special municipality.

Before the red ribbons from the upgrade celebrations had even been taken down, a cut had already been carved into the city's political history.

Formosa Boulevard Station, Dome of Light

Twenty-nine years passed.

On September 14, 2008, the Kaohsiung MRT Orange Line opened, and "Formosa Boulevard Station" entered service on the same day¹⁵. The Kaohsiung City Government deliberately chose this station name to turn the site of the old Dagangpu Roundabout into the name of an MRT station. Around the corner, the "Dome of Light" stands at the R10/O5 platform level.

The Dome of Light at Formosa Boulevard Station, 2024-09-19. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA via Wikimedia.

The Dome of Light was "hand-painted by internationally renowned artist master Narcissus Quagliata. It took four and a half years to complete, has a diameter of 30 meters, and covers an area of 660 square meters"¹⁵. Narcissus Quagliata, born in Rome in 1942, is an authority in contemporary glass art. The dome consists of 4,500 pieces of colored glass divided into four sections: water, representing gestation; earth, growth; light, glory; and fire, destruction and rebirth. In 2012, the U.S. travel site BootsnAll ranked Formosa Boulevard Station second among the world's 15 most beautiful metro stations.

From Dagangpu Roundabout to Formosa Boulevard Station, this reversal took 29 years. On December 10, 1979, people here were prosecuted for assembling; on September 14, 2008, this place became the site of a world-class art installation. The physical location of the roundabout did not change. Its meaning was rewritten twice by the people of Kaohsiung.

Curator's note: Turning the site of the conflict into an art station is Kaohsiung's answer to 1979. It is a form of rewriting as remembrance. Taipei's 228 Peace Park and Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park remember through commemoration: memorials, statues, exhibitions, telling readers that "something happened here." Kaohsiung's Formosa Boulevard Station does something else: it makes memory daily. More than 30,000 people enter and exit this station every day. Whether they look up at the Dome of Light is not important. What matters is that this name has been embedded into the skeleton of the city's MRT network. To see how a city handles its historical wounds, look at whether it has turned that place into somewhere everyone passes through every day.

38 Districts: From the Cijin Sandbar to the Bunun of Namaxia

On December 25, 2010, Kaohsiung was upgraded again.

"On December 25, 2010, the original Kaohsiung City's land area of 153 square kilometers incorporated Kaohsiung County, causing its land area to surge to 2,951 square kilometers. The original city's population of 1.52 million was combined with Kaohsiung County, bringing the total population to 2,774,470"¹⁶.

"The original 11 districts of Kaohsiung City and the 27 townships, towns, and cities of the former Kaohsiung County were merged into 38 districts, including three special-municipality mountain Indigenous districts"¹⁷.

From that day on, "Kaohsiung City" became a city extending from the Cijin sandbar all the way to the foothills of Yushan. The 11 districts of the former Kaohsiung City form the urban core: Yancheng, Gushan, Lingya, Xinxing, Qianjin, Qianzhen, Sanmin, Nanzi, Zuoying, Cijin, and Xiaogang. The 27 former Kaohsiung County townships, towns, and cities are spread around the periphery: Fengshan, Daliao, Niaosong, Renwu, Dashe, Gangshan, Luzhu, Hunei, Yong'an, and Qieding; farther north, Qiaotou, Yanchao, Dashu, Dashe, Tianliao, Alian, Mituo, and Ziguan; farther east, Meinong, Qishan, Neimen, Shanlin, Liugui, and Jiaxian; and in the deepest interior, the three mountain Indigenous districts of Maolin, Taoyuan, and Namaxia.

Every district has a different story. Cijin District has 28,000 people and is an 11.3-kilometer-long sandbar, with ferries as its main transportation in and out. Maolin District has 1,867 people, making it Kaohsiung's least populous district; its main residents are Rukai, and its elevation rises from 200 meters to more than 1,000 meters. Fengshan District has 355,183 people, making it Kaohsiung's most populous district. It was once the county seat of Kaohsiung County and, after the 2010 merger, became the second-most populous single district in Taiwan¹⁸. The populations of these three districts differ by a factor of 190, yet administratively they are all called "a district of Kaohsiung City."

Cijin Island seen from Cihou Mountain. An 11.3-kilometer-long sandbar with 28,000 residents and no bridge connecting it to the main island; the Cross-Harbor Tunnel is for vehicles, and the Gushan ferry is the main transportation.
Aerial view of Cijin District. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA via Wikimedia.

The Three Mountain Districts: Rukai, Bunun, Kanakanavu, Hla'alua

Maolin District is located in Kaohsiung's southeastern mountains. Its main residents are the lower-three-community Rukai, divided among the Maolin, Dona, and Wanshan communities. There are dialect differences in Rukai among the communities, and Dona has the most complete cluster of slate houses¹⁹.

Taoyuan District is distributed along the upper reaches of the Laonong River. Its main people are Bunun, and it is also the traditional territory of the Hla'alua. The Hla'alua were long misidentified as a branch of the Southern Tsou until "the government of the Republic of China recognized the Hla'alua as Taiwan's 15th Indigenous people and the Kanakanavu as the 16th Indigenous people on June 26, 2014"²⁰. Today, the Hla'alua number about 400 and are mainly distributed in Gaozhong and Taoyuan villages in Taoyuan District.

Namaxia District lies along both banks of the Nanzixian River, where Bunun and Kanakanavu live together. The Kanakanavu number about 350 today and mainly live in Dakanua and Maya villages in Namaxia District. The name "Namaxia" comes from a legend: "Hundreds of years ago, a young man named Namaxia discovered that a giant mottled eel was blocking the creek and endangering the community; the people named the Nanzixian River 'Namaxia' in his memory"²¹. Sanmin Township was renamed Namaxia Township in 2008, then upgraded to Namaxia District in 2010.

The names "Hla'alua" and "Kanakanavu" only returned to official ethnic status on June 26, 2014. Before that, their ancestors had been recorded for more than a century as branches of the "Tsou," called "Southern Tsou" in scholarship. Before rectification, others represented them; after rectification, they spoke for themselves.

Meinong: The Right Division of Liudui

Following the Nanzixian River downstream from Namaxia, one reaches Meinong. Meinong District is Kaohsiung's only typical Hakka settlement. Administratively, it belongs to Kaohsiung City; culturally, it belongs to the "Right Division" of "Liudui."

Liudui is the collective name for southern Taiwan's Hakka yimin settlements, divided into the Vanguard, Front, Middle, Rear, Left, and Right divisions. The Right Division covers all or most of Meinong, Liugui, and Shanlin districts, a small part of Jiaxian District, and parts of Qishan District. During the Zhu Yigui uprising in 1721, Hakka settlements in the lower Danshui River basin jointly organized a self-defense militia. "They collectively elected Li Zhisan as grand manager and divided into six groups, or Liudui, to defend their homeland"²². This organization later became a cultural identity for Hakka settlements.

But this story is not only about the 1721 militia. Meinong also has a more recent history.

"In late 1992, the first 'public hearing on the construction of the Meinong Reservoir,' convened by the Meinong Township Office and local groups, set off a movement known as the 'small town against the state': the Meinong anti-reservoir movement"²³. The government planned to build a reservoir upstream on Meinong Creek to supply water to the Kaohsiung area. But the dam site lay on a fault and would have damaged the tropical mother-tree forest ecology of Yellow Butterfly Valley, while also affecting Meinong's traditional Hakka culture.

The movement ran for eight years. "On March 18, 2000, Chen Shui-bian was elected president and subsequently announced that the Meinong Reservoir would not be built during his term"²³. The Meinong People's Association became a model for sustainable Hakka community development in Taiwan and helped drive an entire generation of Hakka youth to return home. Today's Meinong paper umbrellas, flat rice noodles, Hakka cuisine, and tobacco barns under Moonlight Mountain are the result of this township's own choices, not decisions made for someone else.

The August That Buried Namaxia and Taoyuan

From name rectification and the anti-reservoir movement, return to a more recent wound.

On August 8, 2009, Typhoon Morakot struck Taiwan. That day, "Jiaxian Township accumulated 1,856 millimeters of rainfall over 72 hours"²⁴, a figure almost equal to 70% of Taiwan's average annual rainfall. In the early morning of August 8, debris-flow warnings began coming from the mountains, but communications were cut off and the outside world could not immediately grasp the actual scale of the disaster.

The worst was Xiaolin Village. "The most serious case was the destruction of Xiaolin community in Xiaolin Village, Jiaxian Township, Kaohsiung County, which caused 474 people to be buried alive"²⁵. The entire hillside settlement structure of Xiaolin Village was covered by a landslide. "During the August 8 Flood Disaster of 2009, while Typhoon Morakot was striking, more than 600 households in Xiaolin Village, Jiaxian Township, Kaohsiung County were destroyed by debris flows." Survivors of Xiaolin later relocated in three batches to Shanlin Da'ai Village, Wulipu Xiaolin First Village, and Xiaolin Second Village, but the community's original geographic context could not return.

The three mountain Indigenous districts of Namaxia, Taoyuan, and Maolin were also heavily damaged. Access roads were severed, bridges collapsed, and communities were cut off from the outside world for several days. New permanent housing for Namaxia was built in Shanlin District. Some residents from the original communities chose to return to the mountains to rebuild, while others remained below. From that year onward, the community became two communities: one in the original homeland, one in permanent housing.

Curator's note: Standard disaster narratives focus on "death toll," "reconstruction progress," and "government efficiency." But the deeper impact of the August 8 disaster on Kaohsiung's mountain peoples was the severing of the community's geographic connections. The rituals, land knowledge, and language transmission of the Bunun, Kanakanavu, Hla'alua, and Rukai are all tied to specific geographical places: which upper creek has ancestral spirits, which mountain has taboos, which hunting ground belongs to which family. Once a community is relocated, the foundation carrying this system of geographic knowledge is broken. Seventeen years after Morakot, the population of Kaohsiung's three mountain districts continues to drift downhill. A new generation of community children goes to school in Shanlin and Qishan and no longer wakes in the morning inside slate houses. Reconstruction in disaster areas is physical; how long does cultural loss have to be counted before it is recognized?

The Two Lines of the Love River

From the mountains, return to the city and speak of a river.

The Love River originates at Baguailiao Pond in Renwu District, flows through downtown Kaohsiung, and reaches the sea in Qianzhen District. It is 16.4 kilometers long²⁶. Under Japanese rule it was called Takau River or Kaohsiung River; after the war, it was renamed Love River. After the 1960s, Kaohsiung industrialized rapidly. Sewers were not widespread, and industrial, agricultural, and domestic wastewater was discharged directly into the river. The Love River became one of Taiwan's most polluted urban rivers. Its dark gray water carried slicks of oil, and approaching it meant smelling a sharp chemical odor.

But before and after the lifting of martial law in 1987, Taiwan's attitude toward urban rivers began to change. News coverage drew contrasts between "the successful remediation of the Love River" and "the Tamsui River still dirty and foul-smelling"²⁷, although the success at the time was only preliminary. Real remediation accelerated after Frank Hsieh was elected Kaohsiung mayor in 1998: "the wastewater sewer connection rate rose from 6% when he took office to 25%." The area around the Love River was also landscaped, with waterside embankments built, the Film Archive renovated, and Love Boats introduced.

In 2001, the Taiwan Lantern Festival chose Kaohsiung as its site, the first time it was not held in Taipei, and the lantern festival along the Love River became an annual event. "After the 2000s, the Love River successfully transformed into an important Kaohsiung tourist attraction, gradually breaking free from the long-standing stereotype of 'an industrial center and cultural desert'"²⁸.

But industry did not leave. China Steel remains in Xiaogang, the refinery in Nanzi, petrochemical plants in Linyuan, and the thermal power plant in Dalinpu. The successful remediation of the Love River is only one side of this city's transformation. The other side is that Dalinpu is still waiting to be relocated.

"The Linhai Industrial Park contains China Steel, CPC, Taipower, and many related downstream industries, hundreds of factories with smokestacks rising everywhere, surrounding communities such as Dalinpu on three sides"⁹. Residents waged "more than 30 years of protest." In 2016, Premier Lin Chuan publicly apologized in Dalinpu, acknowledged the polluted environment, and launched a relocation survey. But environmental impact assessment disputes over the relocation plan still had not been resolved by 2026.

The Love River's tourist riverbank after remediation. In the 1960s it was one of Taiwan's most polluted urban rivers. During Mayor Frank Hsieh's tenure from 1998, the wastewater sewer connection rate rose from 6% to 25%, and after 2001 the lantern festival along the Love River became a tradition.
Love River, or Kaohsiung River, tourist riverbank after remediation. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA via Wikimedia.

The Love River has two lines: on one side, tourism, lantern festivals, Love Boats, and the story of successful remediation; on the other, Dalinpu, Nanzi's Houjing, Linyuan petrochemicals, and the story of 30 years of protest while waiting for relocation. The same city is doing two things at once: one can become a tourism photograph, while the other appears only in environmental impact assessment reports.

Weiwuying: 4,500 Panels Under an Aluminum-Alloy Roof

On October 13, 2018, the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Weiwuying, opened²⁹. The site is in Fengshan District. It had originally been an army recruit training center, relocated in stages beginning in 1979. During the martial-law period, Kaohsiung people's memory of the words "Weiwuying" was: "the place my son went for military service." Dutch architect Francine Houben drew inspiration from Weiwuying's old banyan trees, using a flowing aluminum-alloy roof to connect four performance halls.

Exterior of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Weiwuying. Dutch architect Francine Houben designed the flowing aluminum-alloy roof using Weiwuying's old banyan trees as inspiration. With 35,000 square meters and 4,500 aluminum-alloy panels, it is the world's largest comprehensive performance venue under one single roof.
National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Weiwuying. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA via Wikimedia.

"The site covers 9.9 hectares, the building covers 3.3 hectares, and the roof is a 35,000-square-meter curved roof assembled from 4,500 aluminum-alloy panels, making it the world's largest comprehensive performance venue under one single roof"²⁹. The opera house has 2,236 seats, the concert hall 1,981, the playhouse 1,209, and the recital hall 434. In 2019, Time magazine selected Weiwuying for its list of the World's Greatest Places.

From recruit training center to world-class performing arts center, this site's story is of the same kind as the story of Formosa Boulevard Station: Kaohsiung residents rewrote martial-law-era military memory into artistic memory. A city's martial-law history will not disappear, but it can be reused.

The year Weiwuying opened was also 39 years after the 1979 special-municipality upgrade and 39 years after the Formosa Incident. From Dagangpu Roundabout to Formosa Boulevard Station, from Weiwuying barracks to Weiwuying theater, this city spent nearly 40 years stitching its wounds into a shape of its own.

2.71 Million People in 38 Districts

In April 2026, Kaohsiung City's population was 2.71 million, making it Taiwan's third-largest special municipality after New Taipei and Taipei³⁰. Fengshan District, with 355,000 people, was the largest; Maolin District, with 1,867 people, was the smallest. The 2.71 million people are spread across 38 districts and 2,951 square kilometers, from the Cijin sandbar to the Bunun communities of Namaxia, with elevations from 0 meters to more than 3,000 meters.

Population structure: Hokkien people are the mainstream, tracing back to Han migration after the Qing court established Fengshan County in 1684; Hakka are centered in Meinong, the Right Division of Liudui; the Makatao, originally a Plains Indigenous people of the "Eight Fengshan Communities," lived on the plains for a thousand years and, after Sinicization in the Qing period, merged into the Hokkien population; mainlanders are concentrated in Zuoying military dependents' villages, a postwar naval base and Taiwan's largest cluster of military dependents' villages, and in Guomao Community, southern Taiwan's largest public housing redevelopment of a military dependents' village; mountain Indigenous peoples are concentrated in Maolin, Rukai; Taoyuan, Bunun and Hla'alua; and Namaxia, Bunun and Kanakanavu.

Compared with Keelung's 360,000 people, Kaohsiung is more than seven times larger; compared with Taipei's 2.4 million, Kaohsiung is slightly larger. But the city's distinctiveness is not its population. It is its scope: the Xiziwan seashore, Namaxia communities, Cijin ferries, and Meinong paper umbrellas coexist within the same administrative coordinates. It is Taiwan's only special municipality that simultaneously contains an urban core, a heavy-industrial belt, a Hakka enclave, and three mountain Indigenous peoples.

✦ "The original 11 districts of Kaohsiung City and the 27 townships, towns, and cities of the former Kaohsiung County were merged into 38 districts, including three special-municipality mountain Indigenous districts." (Wikipedia entry on Kaohsiung City administrative divisions¹⁷)

2018 Han Wave, 2020 Recall

Thirty-nine years after the administrative upgrade, another page was added to this city's political history.

"On November 24, 2018, Han Kuo-yu defeated Chen Chi-mai in the nine-in-one local elections with 892,545 votes and 53.87% of the vote, becoming the third-term mayor of Kaohsiung City. He took office on December 25 of the same year"³¹. Han Kuo-yu's election overturned 20 years of Democratic Progressive Party governance in Kaohsiung. The term "Han wave" swept from south to north that year. His speaking style, slogans, such as "goods go out, people come in, Kaohsiung gets rich," and image were entirely different from those of past Kaohsiung mayors.

But the reversal did not last long. In May 2019, Han Kuo-yu announced his intention to run in the 2020 presidential election and was criticized for having "no mind for municipal affairs." After he lost the January 2020 presidential election to Tsai Ing-wen, Kaohsiung residents began petitioning for a recall.

"The recall vote was held on June 6, 2020. The final result was 939,090 votes in favor, 25,051 votes against, and turnout of 42.14%"³².

"Han Kuo-yu became the first special-municipality mayor in the Republic of China to be recalled"³².

The 939,090 votes in favor were nearly 50,000 more than the 892,545 votes that elected him in 2018. Within two years, the same Kaohsiung electorate used ballots to elect the same person and then remove him. The Reporter's headline put it plainly: "The first local chief in Taiwan's history to be recalled"³³.

The recall is not the focus of this article. The point is that the June 6, 2020 recall, the Dagangpu Roundabout of December 10, 1979, and Formosa Boulevard Station on September 14, 2008 are part of the same political line in the same city. Kaohsiung people do not much believe in "gods." In 1979, they stood up against martial law; in 2020, they stood up again to recall an incumbent mayor. In this city, public opinion becomes physical more directly than in any other Taiwanese city.

4:30 a.m., Black Kites Behind the China Steel Smokestacks

Return to the opening scene.

At Qianzhen Fishing Harbor at 4:30 in the morning, tuna longliners unload their catch. At five, the Gushan ferry carries the first group of Cijin office workers across the harbor. At six, Formosa Boulevard Station beneath the Dome of Light is clean before the commuter crowds surge in. At seven, the early trains at Zuoying HSR Station carry a group of people north to work in Taipei.

Two kilometers away, smokestacks at China Steel's Xiaogang plant emit white smoke. A little farther on, the water of Houjing Creek flows slowly toward the Port of Kaohsiung. From the 1987 plant blockade to the 2015 shutdown of the fifth naphtha cracker, the smell of this water changed. A little farther still, Dalinpu has not yet been relocated.

Farther away, at elevations above 1,000 meters, morning has just begun in Maolin, Taoyuan, and Namaxia for the Rukai, Bunun, Kanakanavu, and Hla'alua. Residents of permanent housing after the August 8 disaster wake in Shanlin District; those who stayed in the original communities wake in the mountains.

So many things happen at the same time in this city's morning because the 2010 city-county merger placed places that had belonged to different geographic units into the same administrative frame. The 38 districts from the Cijin sandbar to the Namaxia communities are the most concrete physical expression of Taiwan's administrative upgrading.

Viewed from Taipei, Kaohsiung is a heavy-industrial port city plus a democratic incident plus Weiwuying. Viewed from the ocean, Kaohsiung is the grandchildren of the 1968 export processing zone's young women working at TSMC; the sons of the people from the 1990 Houjing referendum becoming professors; one of the lawyers from the tear gas at Dagangpu in 1979 later becoming president. Viewed from Qianzhen Fishing Harbor at 4:30 a.m., Kaohsiung is a port city where the whole world is still asleep, but this city has already begun working.

Next time you go to Kaohsiung, do not only visit Liuhe Night Market and the 85 Sky Tower. Try taking the Gushan ferry to Cijin at 5 a.m. and watching the fishing boats enter port. Or take the Kaohsiung MRT Red Line to R8 Sanduo Shopping District, then transfer to the Orange Line to R10/O5 Formosa Boulevard Station and look up at the Dome of Light. Or go farther: rent a car and drive from Meinong to Namaxia, following the Nanzixian River into the mountains. Then you will remember one thing: the wound this city received on December 10, 1979; the reflection from Weiwuying's aluminum-alloy roof in 2018; the name rectification of the 15th and 16th Indigenous peoples in 2014; and the 930,000 votes in the 2020 recall all still circulate within this city of 2.71 million people.

Kaohsiung is not Taiwan's lower half. Kaohsiung is the city where postwar Taiwan's industrialization, democratization, and cultural transformation physically coexist in three layers of time.

Image Sources

This article uses six Wikimedia Commons images under CC licenses.

Hero, frontmatter: Night skyline of Kaohsiung, Taiwan 2014, night view of Kaohsiung, overlooking the Love River and downtown from the direction of the 85 Sky Tower. Photo: peellden, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Scene §Qianzhen Fishing Harbor: Port of Kaohsiung first harbor commercial area 2021, aerial view of the commercial area in the Port of Kaohsiung's First Harbor. CC BY-SA.

Scene §Formosa Boulevard Station: Dome of Light at Formosa Boulevard Station 2024, the Dome of Light at Formosa Boulevard Station. CC BY-SA.

Scene §38 Districts: Cijin Island, Kaohsiung, aerial view of the Cijin sandbar. CC BY-SA.

Scene §Love River: Kaohsiung Love River, the Love River tourist riverbank after remediation. CC BY-SA.

Scene §Weiwuying: Wei-Wu-Ying Center for the Arts 01, exterior of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Weiwuying. CC BY-SA.

Licenses: CC BY-SA 3.0 and CC BY-SA 4.0.

References

History of Kaohsiung — Wikipedia — Complete place-name history, including the Makatao origin of the name "Takau," the 1920, Taishō 9, renaming as Takao Street, the 1924, Taishō 13, upgrade to Kaohsiung City, and the 1940 population of 160,000 that made it Taiwan's second-largest city.↩
History of the Port of Kaohsiung — Taiwan International Ports Corporation, Port of Kaohsiung Branch — Official primary-source material on Gotō Shinpei's 1899 planning of Takau Harbor, the start of first-phase harbor construction in 1908, and the full timeline of expansion projects.↩
1947 Kaohsiung March 6 Massacre — GJ Taiwan — Detailed timeline of Peng Meng-chi's suppression of the Kaohsiung incident on March 6, 1947: negotiating representatives arrested at Shoushan, troops sent down the mountain at 2 p.m., the assault from Sankuaicuo on the railway station and shooting of passengers in the underpass, grenades at city hall that killed fifty or sixty people, and the complete record of the Kaohsiung Senior High School Self-Defense Unit protecting mainlanders.↩
Completion of the Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone — Executive Yuan Precious Historical Records Exhibition — Official primary historical material on the December 1966 passage of the Statute for the Establishment of Export Processing Zones and the selection of Qianzhen District in the Kaohsiung harbor area for the first export processing zone.↩
The Undying Petrochemical Zombie — The Reporter — The Reporter's in-depth reporting on the Kaohsiung Refinery, including a complete chronology of No. 1 Naphtha Cracker, 1968-1990, No. 2, 1975-1994, and No. 5, 1994-2015, and the key quotation that "more than forty large plants became the largest officially recognized polluted area."↩
China Steel Corporation Profile — China Steel official website — Official company history covering formal establishment on December 3, 1971, completion of the first-phase project and start of steel production in 1977, and current Xiaogang crude steel annual capacity of about 10 million metric tons, including steel plate, bars and wire rods, hot-rolled steel, and cold-rolled steel.↩
History of Kaohsiung's Shipbreaking Industry — StoryStudio — Complete rise-and-fall history of the 1965 policy encouraging old ship imports, the Qianzhen-Caoya shipbreaking center, 20,000 workers dismantling 10,000 tons of steel plate daily, the 1973 world number-one ranking, the 1986 Daren Temple Canari tanker explosion that killed 16, the Harbor Bureau's 1989 reclamation of the special zone, and the 1990 exit of the shipbreaking industry.↩
Anti-Fifth-Naphtha-Cracker Movement — Wikipedia — Complete 28-year protest chronology: June 1987 plan announcement, August 5 Houjing village meeting and self-help committee, May 6, 1990 referendum with 61% to 39% opposition, September 14 Hau Pei-tsun promise of relocation after 25 years and NT$1.5 billion in compensation, September 22 Vincent Siew announcement of construction, and November 1, 2015 shutdown.↩
Dalinpu Environmental Refugees — The Reporter — The Reporter's in-depth coverage of Dalinpu, including communities surrounded on three sides by the Linhai Industrial Park's China Steel, CPC, Taipower, and other industries, more than 30 years of resident protest, and Premier Lin Chuan's 2016 public apology and relocation survey.↩
History of Kaohsiung's Upgrade to Special Municipality — National Archives Administration — Official archival record of July 1, 1979, when Kaohsiung City, a provincial city of Taiwan Province, incorporated Xiaogang Township of Kaohsiung County and was upgraded to become the Republic of China's second special municipality.↩
Formosa Incident — National Human Rights Memory Database — Official digital exhibition by the National Human Rights Museum, including the original wording that "because the originally scheduled venue, Rotary Park, had been sealed off, tangwai figures decided to move toward the large roundabout at the intersection of Zhongshan Road and Zhongzheng Road" and that "the calls to lift martial law, allow the formation of political parties, and comprehensively re-elect central representatives were instead spread more widely through the great military trial."↩
Formosa Incident — Wikipedia — Complete event record of the December 10, 1979 Dagangpu Roundabout clash, the December 13 mass arrests, the March 18, 1980 great military trial, the April 18 verdicts, Shih Ming-teh life imprisonment, Huang Hsin-chieh 14 years, Yao, Chang, Lin, Lu, Chen, and Lin 12 years, and the 15 defense lawyers, including Chen Shui-bian, Frank Hsieh, Su Tseng-chang, Chang Chun-hsiung, You Ching, and Chiang Peng-chien.↩
Same as [^11], verbatim from the National Human Rights Memory Database entry on the Formosa Incident.↩
Lin Family Murders — Wikipedia — Complete event record of the February 28, 1980 bloodshed at Lin Yi-hsiung's residence, No. 16, Lane 31, Section 3, Xinyi Road, Taipei: his mother Yu A-mei and twin daughters Lin Liang-chun and Lin Ting-chun were stabbed to death, eldest daughter Lin Huan-chun survived six stab wounds because her schoolbag protected her back, Lin Yi-hsiung was then detained at Jingmei military detention center awaiting trial, and the case remains unsolved and has passed the 25-year statute of limitations. Location confirmed in Taipei, not Kaohsiung and not Yilan.↩
Dome of Light at Formosa Boulevard Station — Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation — Official architectural information on the September 14, 2008 opening of the Orange Line and Formosa Boulevard Station, the Dome of Light hand-painted by master Narcissus Quagliata over four and a half years, its 30-meter diameter, 660-square-meter area, and 4,500 pieces of colored glass divided into water, earth, light, and fire.↩
2010 Kaohsiung City-County Merger — Kaohsiung City Government Civil Affairs Bureau — Official 2010 county-city merger data: on December 25, 2010, the former city's 153 square kilometers were combined with the former county, expanding the land area to 2,951 square kilometers, and the former city's 1.52 million people were combined with the county to reach a total population of 2,774,470.↩
Administrative Divisions of Kaohsiung City — Wikipedia — Complete history of administrative divisions, in which the former Kaohsiung City's 11 districts and the former Kaohsiung County's 27 townships, towns, and cities merged into 38 districts, including three special-municipality mountain Indigenous districts: Maolin, Taoyuan, and Namaxia.↩
Population Statistics for Fengshan District, Kaohsiung City — Kaohsiung City Government Civil Affairs Bureau — Official 2026 population data: Fengshan District 355,183 people, the most populous, and Maolin District 1,867 people, the least populous.↩
Lower-Three-Community Rukai — Council of Indigenous Peoples — Official ethnic information on the dialect differences among the Maolin, Dona, and Wanshan lower-three-community Rukai and the slate house clusters, with Dona having the most complete examples.↩
Name Rectification of the Hla'alua and Kanakanavu — Executive Yuan — Official announcement that on June 26, 2014, the government of the Republic of China recognized the Hla'alua as Taiwan's 15th Indigenous people and the Kanakanavu as the 16th.↩
Origin of the Name Namaxia District — Kaohsiung City Namaxia District Office — Official information on the oral history that "Namaxia" comes from a young man named Namaxia who discovered a giant mottled eel blocking the creek and endangering the community, leading the people to name the Nanzixian River in his memory, as well as the 2008 renaming of Sanmin Township as Namaxia Township and the 2010 upgrade to Namaxia District.↩
Liudui — Hakka Affairs Council — Complete Hakka yimin history of Hakka settlers in the lower Danshui River basin organizing a self-defense militia during the 1721 Zhu Yigui uprising, collectively electing Li Zhisan as grand manager, dividing into six groups, Liudui, to defend their homeland, and the correspondence between the six divisions, Vanguard, Front, Middle, Rear, Left, and Right, and today's administrative areas.↩
Meinong Anti-Reservoir Movement — Wikipedia — Complete environmental movement history of the first public hearing on the Meinong Reservoir held by the Meinong Township Office in late 1992, the eight-year "small town against the state" movement, the dam site on a fault that would damage the ecology of Yellow Butterfly Valley, and Chen Shui-bian's announcement after his March 18, 2000 election that the reservoir would not be built during his term.↩
August 8 Flood Disaster — Wikipedia — Detailed record of Typhoon Morakot's strike on Taiwan on August 8, 2009, the 72-hour accumulated rainfall of 1,856 millimeters in Jiaxian Township, and the severe damage in the mountain areas of Kaohsiung County.↩
Destruction of Xiaolin Village — SET News — Complete disaster retrospective on the 2009 August 8 disaster in Xiaolin community, Xiaolin Village, Jiaxian Township, Kaohsiung County: more than 600 households destroyed by debris flows and 474 people buried alive, including some missing persons.↩
Love River Water System — Kaohsiung City Government Water Resources Bureau — Official water-system information on the Love River's origin at Baguailiao Pond in Renwu District, its course through downtown Kaohsiung to the sea at Qianzhen District, its total length of 16.4 kilometers, and its Japanese-period names Takau River and Kaohsiung River.↩
History of Love River Remediation — Kaohsiung City Government Public Works Bureau — Complete remediation chronology of direct wastewater discharge amid 1960s industrialization and low sewer coverage, preliminary remediation results in 1987, contrasted with the Tamsui River, and the increase in wastewater sewer connection rate from 6% to 25% during Mayor Frank Hsieh's term starting in 1998, along with waterside embankments, renovation of the Film Archive, and introduction of Love Boats.↩
Tourism Transformation of the Love River — Kaohsiung Pictorial — Official pictorial record of the 2001 Taiwan Lantern Festival's first staging in Kaohsiung, the Love River's successful transformation into an important Kaohsiung tourist attraction after the 2000s, and its "gradual escape from the long-standing stereotype of 'an industrial center and cultural desert.'"↩
National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, Weiwuying — Wikipedia — Complete information on the October 13, 2018 opening, former use as an army recruit training center relocated from 1979 onward, architect Francine Houben, 9.9-hectare site and 3.3-hectare building area, 35,000-square-meter curved roof assembled from 4,500 aluminum-alloy panels making it the world's largest comprehensive performance venue under one single roof, 2,236-seat opera house, 1,981-seat concert hall, 1,209-seat playhouse, 434-seat recital hall, and selection by Time in 2019 as one of the World's Greatest Places.↩
Kaohsiung City Population Statistics — Kaohsiung City Government Civil Affairs Bureau — Official population statistics for April 2026: population of 2.71 million, Taiwan's third-largest special municipality after New Taipei and Taipei, with Fengshan District the largest at 355,000 and Maolin District the smallest at 1,867.↩
Han Kuo-yu — Wikipedia — Political figure record covering Han Kuo-yu's November 24, 2018 victory over Chen Chi-mai in the nine-in-one elections with 892,545 votes and 53.87%, his inauguration as third-term Kaohsiung mayor on December 25, and his May 2019 declaration of intent to run in the 2020 presidential election, which triggered criticism that he had "no mind for municipal affairs."↩
2020 Kaohsiung Mayoral Recall of Han Kuo-yu — Wikipedia — Complete electoral data for the June 6, 2020 recall vote: 939,090 votes in favor, 25,051 against, turnout of 42.14%, and Han Kuo-yu becoming the first special-municipality mayor in the Republic of China to be recalled.↩
Record of the Han Recall — The Reporter — The Reporter's in-depth reporting on the recall, including the headline "The first local chief in Taiwan's history to be recalled" and analysis of the recall's subsequent impact on Taiwan's democratic system.↩