Keelung City: The Port Closest to Taipei, the One Taipei Sees Least

30-second overview: In 1626, the Spaniards built Fort San Salvador on Heping Island. In 1875, Shen Baozhen renamed "Keelung" (Chicken Coop) to "Keelung" (Base of Prosperity). In 1884, French forces occupied the city for eight months during the Sino-French War. In 1984, this port ranked as the world's seventh-largest container port. Then three things happened at once: Kaohsiung's container terminal opened in the 1960s, Taoyuan Airport replaced the passenger gateway in 1979, and the Jinguashi mining economy collapsed in the 1980s. Today 360,000 people live here, 39% commute to work in Taipei, and the vacancy rate is 26%. But at 4 a.m., the Kanzaiteng fish market is still alive with the sound of auctions, and the black kite population has grown from 272 in 2013 back to 800. What this article wants to say is: Keelung is Taipei's home port.

4 a.m., Kanzaiteng

If you ask a person from Keelung "when is Keelung most charming," they won't tell you the nights at Miaokou (Miaokou nights are for tourists). They'll tell you 4 a.m. at Kanzaiteng.

The Kanzaiteng fish market sits on Xiao 1st Road, along the stretch where the Xuchuan River flows. "Kan" means stone steps in Hokkien, because fishermen used to have to carry their catch up stone staircases to the street — that's how the market got its name. Every day from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. is its busiest period: a night-only, Taiwanese version of Tsukiji, the largest fish trade market in northern Taiwan¹.

The auctioneer (tiau-siu) is the soul of this market. They stand on wooden crates, chanting numbers for each fish in rapid Hokkien. Wholesalers form a circle around them — hand gestures, eye contact, a furrowed brow, a nod — and within seconds a crate of fish moves from fishing boats in Hualien, Yilan, and Badouzi to stalls in Taipei, New Taipei, and Taoyuan. Before dawn, the tuna destined for a Japanese restaurant in Taipei's Eastern District is already on its way.

This is the most contemporary evidence of Keelung as a port. The glory of being the world's seventh-largest container port in 1984 is in the past, but the logistics node that transforms ocean labor into the capital's dinner table still operates every day. While the capital is still asleep, Keelung has already started working for the capital.

Four Hundred Years Ago, the Spaniards Planted a Flag on Heping Island

Heping Island, only 75 meters from the Taiwan mainland, was called "Sheliao Island" in the Spanish era. Before that, it was a settlement of the Ketagalan Basay people, called "tuman" in the Basay language².

On May 5, 1626, a Spanish fleet sailed north from Manila, Philippines, occupied Sheliao Island, and built Fort San Salvador on the island, standing in distant opposition to the Dutch Fort Zeelandia in Tainan³. This was a proxy war between world empires — a contest over North Asian shipping routes in the Age of Exploration, with Taiwan as a buffer between two European maritime powers.

The Spaniards stayed on this island for 16 years. In 1642, the Dutch East India Company launched the Battle of Keelung. Outnumbered, the Spaniards held out for only six days before surrendering⁴. The Dutch renamed the fort Fort Noord Holland, scaled down its operations, and continued controlling northern Taiwan. But the Dutch didn't stay long either. In 1668, due to indigenous harassment and disappointing trade with the Qing, they also withdrew.

📝 Curator's note: Taiwanese history textbooks often compress the "Spanish era" into a single line: "1626–1642, Spain occupied northern Taiwan." But these 16 years left behind a piece of evidence buried in the earth for 400 years: the ruins of the Church of All Saints at Fort San Salvador. Starting in 2011, NTU Institute of Anthropology director臧振華 (Zang Zhenhua) collaborated with Spanish scholars on trial excavations. In 2016, they uncovered a corner of the Church of All Saints and four burials. In 2019, the NTU team continued the excavation⁵. The interior of the church covers more than 200 square meters, with a total footprint exceeding 350 square meters. Twenty-one sets of remains were unearthed, including Europeans (believed to be missionaries who came to Taiwan at the time) and indigenous Pingpu children in urn burials. The archaeological team summarized the significance of this site in one sentence: "The Heping Island archaeological site is the only evidence left behind by Spanish colonization in Taiwan."⁶ Taiwan's 400 years of global connection are physically buried in the soil of this island, 75 meters from the mainland.

"Base of Prosperity": The Year Shen Baozhen Renamed It

In 1875 (the first year of the Guangxu reign, Qing dynasty), Shen Baozhen submitted a memorial establishing "Taipei Prefecture." In his report, he changed the name from "Keelung" (Chicken Coop) to "Keelung" (Base of Prosperity), using near-homophones in Mandarin to replace it with an auspicious meaning⁷. On January 16 of the following year (the 20th day of the 12th month of the first year of Guangxu), the administrative redistricting was announced: Keelung Subprefecture became Keelung Hall.

This renaming was part of the Qing court's administrative reforms in Taiwan. From Shen Baozhen's perspective, Keelung was Taipei's maritime gateway. To strengthen northern Taiwan's strategic value to the Qing court, one had to start with this port. "Chicken Coop" was too rustic; "Keelung" sounded like a proper city.

Zhangzhou immigrants had arrived earlier. In the 12th year of the Tongzhi reign (1873), Lin Benyuan, a wealthy Zhangzhou-native magnate from Banqiao, donated land, and construction of Dianji Temple began. It was completed in the first year of the Guangxu reign (1875), dedicated to Kaijun Saint-King Chen Yuanguang, serving as the spiritual center for Keelung's Zhangzhou immigrants⁸. Today, the "temple" in "Miaokou Night Market" refers to Dianji Temple, but 150 years ago it was first an immigrant clan temple, later surrounded by the night market.

August 1884: The French Army Arrived

Only ten years after Shen Baozhen's renaming, Keelung faced a war.

On the evening of August 3, 1884, the French fleet arrived off the coast of Keelung. On the morning of August 5, the French opened fire. Liu Mingchuan commanded the defense, and his officers attacked from both sides. The Battle of Keelung during the Sino-French War lasted nearly a year⁹.

The French occupied Keelung for eight months, but they soon found themselves trapped in this rain port. Cholera and typhus broke out starting in November 1884. By December 23, 83 French soldiers had died of disease. On December 1, only 1,100 French troops were still fit for duty — half the number from two months earlier. Tropical diseases were more lethal than Liu Mingchuan's forces¹⁰. On June 9, 1885, the Sino-French New Treaty was signed, and the French withdrew. The war claimed the lives of more than 700 French soldiers.

What did they leave behind? Besides the French military cemetery on the waterfront (the National Martyrs' Cemetery), they left a question that Keelungers would later have to decide how to handle: what to do with the more than 700 unburied French war dead?

The Ghost Festival of "Zhang Head, Xu Tail"

The Keelung way of handling the dead starts a bit earlier.

In the eighth month of 1851 (the first year of the Xianfeng reign), Zhangzhou-Quanzhou feuds were constant. In 1853, a large-scale battle broke out at Fongding (present-day Nanrong Cemetery), with over a hundred dead and wounded. Elders and leaders from both the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou sides mediated, referring to the remains of the fallen from both sides as "Lao Da Gong" (Venerable Ancestors), burying and venerating them together, and building the "Lao Da Gong Temple."

The result of the negotiation was: clan-based rotation of the Zhu Pu (chief officiant), replacing regional-origin identity with kinship bloodline identity¹¹. It was formally established in 1855 (the fifth year of the Xianfeng reign), with the order of 11 surnames determined by lottery, starting with Zhang and ending with Xu — called "Zhang Head, Xu Tail": Zhang-Liao-Jian, Wu, Liu-Tang-Du, Chen-Hu-Yao, Xie, Lin, Jiang, Zheng, He-Lan-Han, Lai, Xu.

✦ "Replacing feuds that break heads with competitive parade formations, in order to achieve social harmony, coexistence, and a great unity of the world." (National Cultural Memory Bank, Keelung Ghost Festival entry¹²)

This is the core spirit of the Keelung Ghost Festival. It is not just the Ghost Festival. Ghost Festivals across Taiwan all venerate wandering spirits, but only the Keelung Ghost Festival institutionalizes the memory of a feud's deaths into a clan-rotation ritual that has continued for 170 years. The parade formations are a ritualized version of the feud: you still compete, but instead of hitting people, you use ornate deity statues, formations, and drum ensembles to see who puts on the grander spectacle.

Zhu Pu altar and Keelung Tower, 2023-10-23. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA via Wikimedia.

After the Sino-French War of 1884, this ritual was upgraded again. Those 700-plus French war dead were incorporated into the universal salvation rites. "Compassionate Han immigrants thus initiated empathy, venerating these unburied deceased"¹². A ritual of reconciliation from a Zhangzhou-Quanzhou feud evolved into a ceremony that even accommodates enemy soldiers from a war. From 1855 to today, it is held every seventh lunar month at the Zhu Pu altar in Zhongzheng Park. The new Zhu Pu altar, completed in the mid-1970s, is an octagonal tower, with the first floor housing the Ghost Festival Cultural Relics Museum¹³.

Five Phases of Port Construction, the World's Seventh-Largest Port in 1984

After the Japanese arrived, Keelung's fate was completely transformed.

From 1899 to 1935, the Japanese colonial period's port construction project ran five phases, more intensive than all Qing-era development combined¹⁴. Phase 1 (1899–1906) involved initial port consolidation and basic equipment. Phase 2 (1906–1912) expanded the inner harbor, with total vessel arrivals and departures reaching 42% of all of Taiwan. Phase 3 (1912–1929) deepened the docks, built warehouses, and added cranes, with total trade volume reaching more than half of all of Taiwan. Phase 4 (1929–1935) extended the port from the inner harbor outward. Phase 5 continued up to the prewar period¹⁵.

In 1916, Keelung Port's trade volume surpassed Tamsui Port and at one point also overtook Kaohsiung Port, becoming Taiwan's most important commercial port. It was upgraded to "city" status in 1924 and became the third-largest city in Taiwan in 1930, after Taipei and Tainan¹⁶. The West 2nd Pier Warehouse, still standing by the harbor today, was built in 1932, and the West 3rd Pier Warehouse in 1934 — the upper level for passenger facilities, the lower level for cargo. The Japanese built this port on two levels because they knew goods would move, and so would people.

In the early postwar period, Keelung continued to lead. Coal mining peaked in 1968, and the entire Keelung area, along with Ruifang, Jiufen, and Jinguashi, was the core region of Taiwan's economic engine.

Then came 1984.

"In 1984, (Keelung Port) rose to become the world's 7th largest container port."¹⁷ This was the historical peak of Keelung as a port. A small port receiving 3,000 mm of rainfall was once the seventh node in the global shipping network.

Then Three Things Happened at Once

Starting in the late 1960s, Kaohsiung Port, leveraging its vast hinterland and container terminal expansion, overtook Keelung Port — constrained by its limited hinterland — beginning in 1969¹⁸. In 1979, Taoyuan Chiang Kai-shek International Airport opened, and Taiwan's passenger gateway shifted from Keelung Port to Taoyuan. No one came to Taiwan by ship anymore. In the 1980s, the mining economy of Jinguashi, Jiufen, and Ruifang collapsed, and Keelung Port's largest hinterland industry vanished.

Three things happened at once, and Keelung Port fell from seventh in the world to 113th in the world and the 4th largest commercial port in Taiwan in 2018¹⁹. "From 2.09 million TEU in 2005, it declined to 1.45 million TEU in 2015, a reduction of 30%" (The Reporter, "130 Years of Keelung Port Construction"¹⁷).

✦ "The port industry is Keelung's locomotive industry — when it moves, there is boundless vitality; once it stops, it is as listless as it is now." (The Reporter, quoting a Keelung port worker¹⁷)

The Fuzhou Pot-Border Porridge of Miaokou, the Mung Bean Pastry of 1882

People from Keelung don't really believe in the "decline" narrative. Ask them, and they'll counter: "Have you tried the鼎邊銼 (ding-bian-cuo) at Miaokou?"

The stall of century-old Wu Family Ding-Bian-Cuo is numbered 27-2, to the left of Dianji Temple. Established in 1919, it has been passed down through three generations²⁰. Founder Wu Tianfu (1903–1986) was especially famous for his meat geng (thick soup), earning the nickname "Meat Geng Shun." In the 1960s, the Wu family took over the neighboring Fuzhou stall and incorporated Keelung's seafood ingredients into the ding-bian-cuo (the name "ding-bian-cuo" itself is a Fuzhou snack; "da ding" in the Eastern Fujian dialect means "big pot").

This bowl of something that looks like flat rice noodles compresses three layers of history into a single bowl: the pot-border cooking method brought by Fuzhou people + Keelung's seafood ingredients + the market integration of Miaokou stalls in the 1960s, ultimately becoming a dish that "only Keelung can make."

A few steps away is Li Ku Pastry. No. 90, Ren 3rd Road, Ren'ai District, opened in the 8th year of the Guangxu reign (1882), and by 2026 it has been in business for over 140 years²¹. The first-generation founder Li Yuanxiang made mung bean pastries; the second-generation Li Xianwen made curry puffs; the third-generation Li Zongzong improved the pineapple cake. In an interview, he recounted his grandfather's explanation of the shop's name: "The 'ku' is a type of bird that flies high and far."²² A port in decline somehow opened a pastry shop that has lasted longer than the entire history of the Republic of China in Taiwan.

And the Kanzaiteng fish market (mentioned earlier) is actually the true engine of Miaokou Night Market. Without Kanzaiteng's midnight fish auctions, the tempura at Miaokou (what Keelungers call tempura is actually tianbula — fish cake — completely different from Japanese tempura), bubble ice, braised eel, and shrimp geng couldn't be made at all. Keelung's food culture is "harbor flavor": the auction sounds at 4 a.m. become the umami that tourists chew in their mouths at 6 p.m.

Across from Zhengbin's Colorful Houses, the Ruins of Argenna

Colorful row houses at Zhengbin Fishing Port, 2025-08-12. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0.

If you want to see how a city deals with its own ruins, go to Zhengbin Fishing Port.

Zhengbin Fishing Port, on the eastern side of Keelung Port, was the main fishing port in northern Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. During Mayor You Chang Lin's tenure (2014–2022), in collaboration with Guo Qiongying, chair of the Chinese Culture University Department of Landscape Architecture, and after "spending two years grinding away before awakening residents' awareness of participation," the old houses by the port were painted into colorful houses. The locals named the 55 colors "Zhengbin Colors"²³. Today it is an Instagram check-in hotspot, but that is not its most moving feature.

The most moving feature is: turn a corner, and directly across are the ruins of Argenna Shipyard.

Argenna's history goes like this: in 1919 it was Huang Dongmou's coal storage yard; in 1937 it was converted to an ore transport dock, where gold mined at Jinguashi was first sent by aerial tramway to Shuiandong, then to Badou, then to Niudu Harbor, and from here loaded onto ships bound for Japan²⁴. From 1966 to 1987 it became Argenna Shipyard, operated by Xue Guohang, a contract builder of sailboats and yachts — the pioneer of Taiwan's sailing movement. It went bankrupt and was abandoned in 2016. In July 2016 it was registered as a Keelung City historic building.

Next to the gray-black concrete ruins are the vibrant, colorful Zhengbin houses. Dark and bright, less than 100 meters apart. These are two faces of Keelung's modernization, compressed into the frame of a tourist's phone camera. From this image, you can read an entire contemporary narrative of Keelung: we didn't demolish the ruins and rebuild — we built the colorful houses next to the ruins.

You Chang Lin, Kuo Liang Hsieh, and the Recall Vote

You Chang Lin's transformation can be summarized in one sentence: "The most important thing is for this city to have an issue that rekindles citizens' identity and centripetal force, and to secure Keelung's voice over this port."¹⁷ His accomplishments include: in 2014, preventing the demolition of the West 2nd and West 3rd Pier Warehouses (Minister Lung Ying-tai visited and supported the site, and the Cultural Affairs Bureau designated them as historic buildings); in 2021, the "Night of Nations" exhibition area at Zhengbin Fishing Port; in 2022, the city expo "Design Transforms the Starting City: Keelung"; and replacing the city logo, with the new version using five colors: green for the mountain city, yellow for vitality, black because Keelung once produced abundant coal, red for passion, and blue for Keelung Port and the ocean²⁵.

In 2022, Kuo Liang Hsieh (Kuomintang) was elected mayor. Two years later, on October 13, 2024, the people of Keelung cast a recall vote. Votes against recall: 86,014 (55.16%); votes in favor: 69,934 (44.84%); turnout: 50.44%²⁶. The recall failed, Kuo Liang Hsieh retained the mayor's office, and by law could not be recalled again. Keelung became the second elected local head, after Kaohsiung's Han Kuo-yu, to face a recall proposal, and the first at the sub-provincial level.

The recall is not the focus of this article. The focus is why people in Keelung went out to vote. A young returnee, Li Yanrong, said in a The Reporter interview: "My hometown is Keelung — leaving to drift elsewhere doesn't mean I've lost my sense of belonging." She had Keelung's coordinates tattooed on her body and explained: "I hope to remember what I looked like when I left."²⁷

This is a small city of 360,000 people. But among those 360,000, some came back to vote.

39% of People Work in Taipei

In April 2026, Keelung's population was 359,102, having fallen below 360,000²⁸.

Cross-county commuting rate: highest in the nation at 39.2%¹⁷. Vacancy rate: 26%. The Reporter's "130 Years of Keelung Port Construction" wrote it plainly: "Keelung claims two national number-ones: a cross-county commuting rate of 39.2% for those aged 15 and over, and a vacancy rate of 26%"¹⁷. From another The Reporter article on the recall vote, the most common sentiment from citizens interviewed was exhaustion: "It doesn't matter who's in charge" (village chief Dai Xueli, recall coverage)²⁷.

In 2025, the Keelung City Government raised the childbirth subsidy from NT$20,000 to NT$30,000, but "compared to Taipei and New Taipei, it is still insufficient." Keelung has no MRT. The Keelung terminal of Kuo-Kuang Bus operates 24 hours a day, the most physical link between this city and the capital.

The deeper number is this: "People have very little confidence in this city — it feels a bit embarrassing to say you're from Keelung."¹⁷ This quote comes from a Keelung resident interviewed in The Reporter's "130 Years of Keelung Port Construction." A port that was seventh in the world in 1984, and in 2026 its residents "feel a bit embarrassed to say they're from Keelung." This gap falls on every one of the 39% of Keelungers who commute across county lines.

But if you actually talk to people from Keelung, you'll find they don't really believe this narrative themselves. They know Taipei doesn't see them, but they don't particularly need Taipei to see them. They have the auction sounds at Kanzaiteng in the middle of the night, the surreal landscape of Argenna and the colorful houses side by side, the clan-rotation Ghost Festival that has continued since 1885, and the mung bean pastry shop from 1882. These things don't need Taipei's validation.

📝 Curator's note: The prevailing online narrative is "Keelung has declined." But this narrative reverses cause and effect. The real reason for Keelung's decline is that after Taiwan's modernization power center shifted to the Taipei-Taoyuan-Hsinchu corridor, all the logistics that once passed through Keelung (international passenger shipping, mining, containers) were redirected to other nodes. The decline of Keelung Port is a side effect of the nation's development path, unrelated to efforts within the city. The word "decline" places Keelung in a coordinate system measured against Taipei. But from the ocean's perspective, Keelung has never left its position. It has always been the port closest to Taipei. The question was never about Keelung — it was about whether Taipei could see.

At 4 a.m., the Black Kites Are Waiting

Return to the opening scene.

At 4 a.m. at Kanzaiteng, the auctioneer's chanting, the fishermen's footsteps carrying crates, the sound of rain on canvas canopies — all mixed together under the orange glow of auction lights. Wholesalers, restaurant buyers, fishermen, delivery drivers — everyone is in motion.

Two kilometers away, at the mouth of the Xuchuan River flowing into Keelung Port, black kites circle.

The black kite is Keelung's city bird. In 2013, only 272 remained across all of Taiwan. By 2023, the number had recovered to 808²⁹. Their food source is this fish market and the adjacent produce market: "processed poultry and fish scraps, offal, discharged through the sewer from the Xuchuan River mouth into the harbor area."²⁹ A declining port city has, paradoxically, given raptors a space to survive. When humans feel forgotten, the black kites have found food here.

Xie Bingying wrote in Rain Port Keelung: "When everyone on shore is being drenched by the rain and can barely lift their heads, when everyone is cursing the heavens for their cruelty, I am secretly delighted."³⁰ Keelungers' view of rain is different from outsiders'. Outsiders see rain as a nuisance; Keelungers see rain as part of their body. Taiwan Panorama quoted a Keelunger: "For old Keelungers, no matter the weather, they always carry an umbrella when they go out."³¹ The editor of Keelung For A Walk put it even more precisely: Keelungers describe an overcast day by saying, "Today is good weather."³²

This city's relationship with the capital depends on where you're looking from. From Taipei, Keelung is a declining satellite city. From the ocean, Keelung is a port that hasn't moved in 400 years. From 4 a.m. at Kanzaiteng, Keelung is a city that starts working for the capital while the capital is still asleep.

Next time you go to Keelung, don't just visit Miaokou. Try leaving Taipei at 3:30 a.m. and arriving at Kanzaiteng at 5. Listen to the auctioneer's chants. Watch the black kites circling above the port. And then you'll remember one thing: Taiwan is a maritime nation. And Keelung, since the Spaniards planted that flag in 1626, has been receiving what comes across the sea for this island.

Further Reading

• Taiwan Urban Development and Urban-Rural Disparities — Keelung's position as a "declining port city" within Taiwan's broader urban structure
• Taiwan Administrative Divisions — The administrative evolution: Shen Baozhen's renaming in 1875, upgrade to city status in 1924, reclassification as a provincial city in 1945
• Urban Characteristics and Regional Culture — Keelung in comparative context with other counties and cities
• Jinguashi — Keelung Port's largest hinterland industry: in 1932, the Shuiandong tramway carried gold to Zhengbin Fishing Port for shipment to Japan
• Yehliu — Part of the same North Coast geological landscape belt
• Taiwan Coastal Terrain and Marine Landscapes — The formation of Keelung Islet and the Keelung Volcanic Group
• Chiayi City — Another medium-sized provincial city in the 22 Counties and Cities Series, also a city suppressed by the capital framework — comparing two different fault lines
• Lienchiang County — 22 Counties and Cities Series: the Taiwan-Matsu ferry rocks from Keelung Port to Nangan for 8 to 10 hours; Keelung is the physical link between Matsu and the Taiwan mainland
• Miaoli County — 22 Counties and Cities Series: Hakka stubbornness vs. the five-star county magistrate paradox — placed alongside Keelung's "invisible to the capital" as two local political portraits
• Penghu County — 22 Counties and Cities Series: an outlying island that twice rejected gambling sovereignty choices — like Keelung, a forgotten port of departure
• Yilan County — 22 Counties and Cities Series: two Yilans, before and after the Hsuehshan Tunnel — like Keelung, facing the fate of being "too close to the capital"
• Pingtung County — 22 Counties and Cities Series: the 1874 Mudan Incident that changed Taiwan's fate / the 2009 Typhoon Morakot disaster where Linbian was submerged for a month — like Keelung, "a key node the center's narrative misses"
• Kinmen County — 22 Counties and Cities Series: the 56 hours of the 1949 Battle of Guningtou that determined Kinmen's 75-year fate and Taiwan's too / the 44 days of the August 23 Artillery Bombardment in 1958 with 474,910 shells fired — like Keelung, two versions of a "Cold War and hot war frontline"

Image Credits

This article uses 3 Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 licensed images, all photographed by Taiwankengo:

• Hero (frontmatter): 2020 Zhengbin Fishing Port — Panoramic view of the colorful houses at Zhengbin Fishing Port, the result of the color plan promoted during You Chang Lin's mayoralty, 55 "Zhengbin Colors."
• Scene §Four Hundred Years Ago: 2022 Hoping Island Keelung TAIWAN — Sea-eroded formations at Heping Island Geopark, site of the Church of All Saints ruins.
• Scene §Five Phases of Port Construction: 2017 Port of Keelung — Aerial view of Keelung Port, the contemporary appearance of what was the world's 7th largest container port in 1984.

License: CC BY-SA 4.0.

References