Tainan City: 261 Years as Capital, 400 Years of Monuments, and 21st-Century Chips Layered on the Same Land

30-second overview: In 1624, the Dutch East India Company began building Fort Zeelandia on the dunes of Tayouan; it was completed in 1634, with walls made from a mixture of glutinous rice juice, syrup, sand, and oyster-shell powder¹. At dawn on April 30, 1661, Koxinga led 400 warships and 25,000 troops through Luermen into the Taijiang Inland Sea². On February 1, 1662, Frederik Coyett signed the Koxinga-Dutch Treaty in this fort; on February 9, 2,000 Dutch people boarded eight ships and left the beach³. The 38-year Dutch occupation of Taiwan ended. In 1665, Chen Yonghua built the Confucius Temple, later called “Taiwan’s First Academy” under Qing rule⁴. In 1684, the Qing court established Taiwan Prefecture in present-day Tainan. For 261 consecutive years, from 1624 to 1885, Tainan was Taiwan’s administrative center. At noon on March 13, 1947, lawyer Tang Te-chang was bound, forced onto a truck and paraded through the streets; in the end, he fell to gunfire at the Minsheng Green Park traffic circle, crying out “Long live the Taiwanese people”⁵. On December 25, 2010, Tainan County and Tainan City merged and were upgraded into a special municipality, with 37 districts and about 1.85 million people. In 2023, Southern Taiwan Science Park’s annual revenue reached NT$1.5855 trillion, exceeding Hsinchu Science Park by NT$165.5 billion⁶. TSMC’s NT$700 billion investment in its 3-nanometer Fab 18 was built on the same plain where the Dutch planted their flag 400 years earlier.

The Day Coyett Handed Over the Keys on the Beach

That day, 2,000 Dutch people stood on the beach.

On February 9, 1662, Dutch people scattered across Taiwan gradually arrived at Tayouan. They boarded eight Dutch ships and waited to sail. The Chinese Wikipedia record states: “Coyett handed the keys of Fort Zeelandia to Zheng officials on the beach, and Koxinga also entered Fort Zeelandia to receive the fortress and the property inside it.”³

⚠️ There is one detail in the surrender date that Chinese-language sources often conflate: on February 1, 1662, Coyett signed the Koxinga-Dutch Treaty inside Fort Zeelandia; February 9 was the day the Dutch finally departed. English Wikipedia and most European historical materials use February 1 as the surrender date, meaning the signing date; Chinese-language sources often use February 9, the evacuation date. This article restores the process with the dual-date formulation “treaty signed on February 1, 1662; evacuation on February 9”³.

That fort had taken 38 years to build.

In 1624, the Dutch East India Company began constructing Fort Zeelandia on the dunes of Tayouan, today’s Anping. Taiwan Panorama records it verbatim: “Fort Zeelandia was built on the dunes, and Zeelandia Town was also constructed to the east of the fort.”⁷ Completed in 1634, the fort walls were made from glutinous rice juice, syrup, sand, and oyster-shell powder. The inner fort had three levels, with bastions at all four corners, each equipped with five cannons¹.

Anping Fort. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 3.0.

In 1653, after the Guo Huaiyi Incident the previous year in 1652, an armed uprising by Han Chinese migrants against heavy Dutch taxation, the Dutch built Fort Provintia at Chihkan, east of Tayouan, to consolidate their rule; it was completed in 1655 and became the predecessor of today’s Chihkan Tower⁷. From that moment on, Tainan’s twin-city structure was fixed: Zeelandia by the sea, Provintia on land.

The Dutch brought more than fortresses. On May 26, 1636, they opened Taiwan’s first school in Sinkan village. The missionary Georgius Candidius used the Roman alphabet to write the language of the Siraya people of Sinkan, the earliest systematic written record in Taiwan’s history⁸. Later generations called these documents the “Sinkan Manuscripts” or “foreign letters.” This writing system continued to be used into the Qing dynasty; the latest verifiable examples date to 1813, the 18th year of the Jiaqing reign, when bilingual contracts between Siraya people and Han Chinese were still using it⁸.

180 years. An alphabetic system left behind by a Dutch missionary in 1636 outlived both the Zheng regime and the early Qing period.

Luermen at 7:30 a.m., 400 Warships Enter the Taijiang Inland Sea

At dawn on April 30, 1661, 400 warships and 25,000 troops approached the Taijiang Inland Sea from Luermen².

The scholarly consensus is that, according to Dutch Batavia records, the exact time of the Zheng army’s arrival at Luermen was 6:30 a.m. Batavia time on April 30, 1661 (7:30 a.m. Taiwan time). Zheng-side sources record it as the first day of the fourth month in the 15th year of the Yongli reign². The advance force landed on the northern shore of Beishanwei and destroyed the small Dutch garrison stationed there. The Zheng army rested at Luermen until noon, when the tide was high. Guided by He Bin, the ships passed through the Luermen channel into the Taijiang.

From April 30, when they entered the Taijiang Inland Sea, to February 1 of the following year, when Coyett signed the surrender papers in Fort Zeelandia: nine months.

📝 Curator’s note: School history classes describe Koxinga as “the national hero who recovered Taiwan,” and move on in one sentence. But on that day in April 1661, “Taiwan” was the Dutch East India Company’s Formosa: an island where Siraya people and Han Chinese migrants had lived together for 38 years, a world entirely different from later Qing Taiwan, and later still Republic of China Taiwan. Koxinga came from southern Fujian. What he did was take this island from the Dutch East India Company and turn it into his own anti-Qing base, not “recover” a piece of land that had originally belonged to China. When Coyett handed over the keys on the beach on February 9, 1662, Taiwan had its first Han Chinese regime. For the 38 years before that, it was the Dutch; before that, it was land inhabited for a millennium by the four major Siraya communities of Sinkan, Soulang, Mattauw, and Baccloan. A “Han Chinese regime” and a “return to the motherland” are two different things. This was a dynastic transfer. Compressing this episode into the single phrase “Koxinga recovered Taiwan” flattens the multilingual, multiethnic, multi-imperial Taiwan of the 17th century into a single national narrative. Tainan’s layered history begins with this nine-month siege.

Koxinga stayed in Tainan for only 13 months.

On June 23, 1662, the eighth day of the fifth month in the 16th year of the Yongli reign, Koxinga died in Chengtian Prefecture, today’s Tainan, at age 38⁹. The cause of death is uncertain, and detailed clinical records are lacking. From his landing on April 30, 1661, to his death on June 23, 1662, he spent less than one year and two months in Taiwan.

Zheng Jing succeeded him, renamed Dongdu as Dongning in 1664, and appointed Chen Yonghua as advisory military councilor. Chen Yonghua did two things that defined the shape of Tainan for the next 350 years. First, in 1665, the 19th year of the Yongli reign, he advised Zheng Jing to “build a temple to the sages and establish a school,” selecting Guizaipu in Ningnan Ward, Chengtian Prefecture, as the site for the Temple of the Former Teacher, the Confucius Temple, and the Minglun Hall⁴. The official Tainan Confucius Temple text states: “Tainan Confucius Temple was founded in the 19th year of the Ming Yongli reign (1665). It was a school established during Zheng Jing’s rule on the recommendation of advisory military councilor Chen Yonghua to ‘build a temple to the sages and establish a school.’”⁴ It also says: “In the early Qing period, it was once the only place in all Taiwan where tongsheng students could enroll, and therefore was called ‘Taiwan’s First Academy.’”⁴

Second, in the same year, he reformed salt production by “switching from boiling to solar evaporation,” replacing firewood boiling with sun-drying crystallization. Taiwan’s modern salt industry formally began that year¹⁰. The 300-year salt industry of Qigu and the Jingzaijiao Tile-paved Salt Fields in Beimen later grew out of this reform.

The Dacheng Hall of Tainan Confucius Temple. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In July 1683, Shi Lang led more than 200 Qing warships and over 20,000 troops in an attack on Taiwan. Zheng Keshuang surrendered to the Qing. The Ming Zheng era ended after 21 years⁹.

The “Taiwan’s First Academy” Plaque Still Hangs There; the Red Bricks of Eternal Golden Castle Came from Fort Zeelandia

In April 1684, the Qing court established Taiwan Prefecture in Tainan, with its seat in Dong’an Ward and under the jurisdiction of Fujian Province¹¹. The Qing set up “one prefecture and three counties”: Taiwan Prefecture, with its seat in today’s Tainan; Taiwan County, today’s Tainan; Fengshan County, today’s Kaohsiung and Pingtung; and Zhuluo County, today’s Chiayi and areas north of it.

In 1664, Zheng Jing welcomed Zhu Shugui, the Prince of Ningjing of the Ming, to Taiwan and built the Ningjing Prince’s Mansion, predecessor of today’s Grand Matsu Temple. After Shi Lang occupied Taiwan in 1683, the Prince of Ningjing hanged himself in loyalty to the Ming. Shi Lang petitioned the Qing court to convert the mansion into a Matsu temple, and the Qing court elevated Matsu’s title to “Tianhou,” Empress of Heaven¹¹. The Grand Matsu Temple is Taiwan’s earliest officially built Matsu temple and the only Matsu temple in Taiwan directly established by Qing imperial order.

In Qing-era Taiwan, Tainan was the “one prefecture” in the saying “first the prefecture, second Lukang, third Monga,” ranking first among Taiwan’s commercial cities under Qing rule¹¹. The three merchant guilds of the prefectural city, the North Guild Suwanli, South Guild Jinyongshun, and Sugar Guild Lishengxing, established around the 1720s, dredged and repaired the Five Channels and controlled Taiwan’s trade with mainland China.

Chihkan Tower. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Five Channels, from north to south Xingangzai Channel, Fotou Channel, Nanshi Channel, Nanhe Channel, and Anhai Channel, were the busiest commercial waterways in the prefectural city from the Qianlong to Jiaqing reigns¹². Shennong Street, originally called Beishi Street, was the commercial center of the Five Channels and has 300 years of history. But in July 1823, the third year of the Daoguang reign, a major storm caused the Zengwen River to change course, carrying massive amounts of earth and rock. Within about seven days, large areas of the Taijiang Inland Sea turned into land¹². The last remnant of Taijiang shrank into today’s Qigu Lagoon. Anping Harbor was thereby connected to land, and by the late 19th century, severe silting meant ships could only anchor two nautical miles from the old harbor.

The harbor disappeared, but the street pattern remained. Shennong Street, Hai’an Road, and the Five Channels Cultural Zone, where young cultural tourists take photographs in Tainan’s old city today, are the same stone-paved roads where merchant guilds hauled goods ashore 200 years ago. Tainan is a city preserved by siltation.

In 1874, the Mudan Incident occurred, and Japanese troops invaded Pingtung. The Qing court ordered Shen Baozhen, the Fujian naval commissioner, to Taiwan to handle the crisis. Construction began in September 1874, the 13th year of the Tongzhi reign, and was completed in August 1876, the second year of the Guangxu reign. Eternal Golden Castle was finished¹³. The Monuments Management Section of the Tainan City Government Cultural Affairs Bureau records explicitly: “Construction began in September of the 13th year of the Tongzhi reign (1874) and was completed in August of the second year of the Guangxu reign (1876).” ⚠️ Some sources use “built in 1875,” counting from the first year of the Guangxu reign, but official records give the start and completion dates as 1874 and 1876. This article follows them.

The designers were the French engineers Bordeaux and Loffre. A four-corner bastion structure, it is Taiwan’s only surviving bastion-style artillery fort¹³. It was equipped with five British-made Armstrong 18-ton muzzle-loading cannons. The inscriptions on the front gate, “Eternal Golden Castle,” and on the rear, “Pillar Amid Ten Thousand Currents,” were both written by Shen Baozhen. Some of the building materials were taken from the collapsed red bricks of Fort Zeelandia. The Dutch-era fortress was dismantled and rebuilt into a Qing-era battery against the French. During the Sino-French War in 1884, French forces blockaded the Taiwan Strait and shelled the waters off Anping. The garrison at Eternal Golden Castle fired back and drove them away; the French failed to land¹³.

Eternal Golden Castle. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Sino-French War ended in 1885. The Qing court announced that Taiwan would become a province and established the office of Taiwan governor. The provincial capital was ultimately placed in Taipei. The old Taiwan Prefecture in Tainan was renamed “Tainan Prefecture” and lost its 261-year status as Taiwan’s administrative center¹¹.

Counting from the Dutch establishment of Fort Zeelandia in 1624, Taiwan’s administrative center was in today’s Tainan for 261 years, from 1624 to 1885. ⚠️ The calculation is: 38 Dutch years, 1624-1662; 21 Ming Zheng years, 1662-1683; and 201 years of early Qing rule, 1684-1885. From this year onward, the identity of “capital” was taken by Taipei. But what 261 years left behind did not leave: the Confucius Temple, the Grand Matsu Temple, Chihkan Tower, Anping Fort, Eternal Golden Castle, and the street pattern of the Five Channels. Tainan became “a city that lost its capital status but kept the entire city.”

Minsheng Green Park Traffic Circle, Three Gunshots at Noon

It was noon.

On March 13, 1947, lawyer Tang Te-chang was bound, pushed onto a truck, and paraded through the streets as a public warning. The place was the Minsheng Green Park traffic circle in central Tainan, originally the plaza in front of the police station during the Japanese colonial period. GJ Taiwan records it verbatim: “On March 13, 1947, Tang Te-chang was executed by Chinese troops at the traffic circle in central Tainan.”⁵

After the February 28 Incident broke out, Tang Te-chang was elected head of the public order section of the Tainan branch of the February 28 Incident Settlement Committee, maintaining order in the city and protecting citizens¹⁴. On March 11, the Nationalist Army’s reorganized 21st Division entered Tainan to suppress the city. Twenty to thirty military police and special agents burst into Tang Te-chang’s home and arrested him. GJ Taiwan states verbatim: “To protect those involved, he refused to give up any names even after undergoing various forms of torture.”⁵

The execution was carried out at noon on March 13. GJ Taiwan records: “At noon on March 13, Tang Te-chang was bound and forced onto a truck to be paraded through the streets as a warning; with composure, he walked toward the execution ground. Finally, with the stirring cry ‘Long live the Taiwanese people!’ and the three gunshots that followed, Lawyer Tang’s life came to an end.”⁵

Tang Te-chang was born on January 6, 1907. His father was from Uto, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan; his mother was from Nanhua, Tainan¹⁴. He audited courses at the Faculty of Law of Chuo University in Tokyo, passed the “Higher Civil Service Examination, Judicial Section” in September 1941, and opened a law office in Tainan’s Nanmencho in 1943. He was only 40 when he was killed.

✦ “Finally, with the stirring cry ‘Long live the Taiwanese people!’ and the three gunshots that followed, Lawyer Tang’s life came to an end.” (GJ Taiwan, “On March 13, 1947, Tang Te-chang was executed by Chinese troops at the traffic circle in central Tainan”⁵)

In 1998, the Tainan City Government renamed Minsheng Green Park as Tang Te-chang Memorial Park¹⁴. In 2014, Lai Ching-te, then mayor of Tainan, declared March 13 every year as Tainan City Justice and Courage Memorial Day¹⁴.

⚠️ This traffic circle has a timeline pressed beneath history: Qing-era streets after Shen Baozhen’s 1875 reconstruction of Tainan Prefecture, a police station plaza from the Japanese colonial 1900s, the February 28 execution ground where Tang Te-chang was shot and fell in 1947, its 1998 renaming as a memorial park, and its 2014 designation as a memorial day. One traffic circle, the memories of five eras layered on the same asphalt.

Liu Yongfu Crosses Back to China; Barclay Brings Japanese Troops into the City Through the Small South Gate

On April 17, 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed, and Taiwan was ceded to Japan. Tainan gentry installed Liu Yongfu, commander of the Black Flag Army, as the second president of the Republic of Formosa, moved the capital to Tainan, and continued resisting¹⁵. Liu Yongfu established the “Duhu Postal Service” and issued the “Duhu stamps” on July 31, 1895.

On October 20, 1895, seeing that the situation was hopeless, Liu Yongfu boarded a British merchant ship and crossed back to Xiamen¹⁵. On October 21, local gentry Chen Xiuwu and Wu Daoyuan asked the British missionary Thomas Barclay (1849-1935) and Pastor Song Zhongjian to come forward and negotiate with Nogi Maresuke of the Japanese Army’s Second Division. Japanese troops entered Tainan through the Small South Gate, and the Republic of Formosa formally collapsed.

Barclay was a Scottish missionary who arrived in Taiwan on June 5, 1875. In 1877, he founded Tainan Theological College and Seminary, whose predecessor was a missionary training class. On July 12, 1885, he founded the Taiwan Prefectural City Church News, the first church newspaper in the Far East¹⁵. Late at night on October 20, 1895, gentry inside the city begged him to intervene and help Tainan open its gates peacefully, avoiding a massacre. Tainan was one of the few cities in the 1895 campaign that was not massacred, because of a British pastor from Scotland who had spent 20 years preaching there.

Tainan’s position declined during the Japanese colonial period. In the 1920 administrative reform, the ninth year of the Taisho era, Tainan Prefecture was established, with its prefectural office in Tainan City. From the 1930s, Tainan City remained Taiwan’s second-largest city after Taipei, but it retreated year by year after Kaohsiung Harbor rose¹⁶. From the 1940s, after Kaohsiung annexed surrounding urban areas, its population surpassed Tainan’s, and Tainan fell to third place.

But the Japanese colonial period left behind something that still operates today: the Chianan Canal.

Water began flowing on April 10, 1930. The Japanese engineer Yoichi Hatta led the project, which took 10 years, from 1920 to 1930¹⁷. GJ Taiwan records: “On April 10, 1930, the Chianan Canal, then the largest and most technically advanced irrigation facility in all Asia, finally began operating smoothly.”¹⁷ The irrigation channels totaled 10,000 kilometers, the drainage channels 6,000 kilometers, irrigating 150,000 hectares of farmland on the Chianan Plain and benefiting 600,000 farmers. Wushantou Reservoir, in Guantian District, Tainan, had a dam height of 56 meters and a storage capacity of 150 million tons when completed; at the time, it was Asia’s largest and the world’s third-largest reservoir¹⁷.

Qigu Salt Mountain. Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0. Chen Yonghua’s 1665 “switch from boiling to solar evaporation” began the modernization of Taiwan’s salt industry, 337 years ago.

Counting from Chen Yonghua’s Qing-era 1665 “switch from boiling to solar evaporation,” through the 1818 relocation of Laidong Salt Field to Jingzaijiao in Beimen, the 1930 opening of the Chianan Canal, the 1971 start of work on the Qigu Salt Fields, and the final mechanized salt harvest at Qigu in May 2002, when the closure of all Taiwan salt fields was announced: Taiwan’s 337-year salt-industry history came to an end that May in 2002¹⁷. Qigu Salt Mountain is now a tourist attraction; visitors climb the salt mound for photographs, standing on a white mountain of memory that began accumulating in the 17th century.

Yanshui Beehive Fireworks, Tainan Snacks, and the Young Cultural Crowd of the Five Channels

In 1885, the 11th year of the Guangxu reign, an epidemic spread through Yanshui.

Residents invited Guansheng Dijun, Lord Guan, from the Martial Temple to make a procession through the area. Believers set off firecrackers along the route to drive away the plague god. Tainan Travel records: “At the time, the epidemic in the Yanshui area would not subside. Residents prayed for the protection of Guansheng Dijun of the Martial Temple, and later decided to invite the deity’s palanquin to make a three-day procession from the 13th to the 15th day of the first lunar month. Believers set off firecrackers along the route of the palanquin to frighten and drive away the plague god. After being cleansed by sulfurous smoke and gunpowder, the epidemic was indeed removed.”¹⁸

The practice has continued for a century, about 140 years, to the present. In 2015 it was included in the Tourism Bureau’s calendar. “Sky lanterns in the north, beehive fireworks in the south”: together with the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival, it is one of Taiwan’s two great northern and southern Lantern Festival events, and was selected among the “world’s top ten best festivals”¹⁸. ⚠️ There is debate about the origin year: some sources say “the early Guangxu period,” meaning from 1875 onward; the Wikipedia entry and the official travel website both use “the 11th year of Guangxu, 1885,” which this article follows.

Yanshui has another identity: Yuejin Harbor. In early Qing Taiwan, it was the fourth-ranked commercial harbor in the saying “first the prefecture, second Lukang, third Monga, fourth Yuejin”¹⁹. It was a harbor on the Daofeng Inland Sea, named because the river channel was shaped like a crescent moon. Like the Taijiang Inland Sea, the Daofeng Inland Sea later silted up and became land, forming the plains of today’s Yanshui, Xuejia, and Jiali. The fourth-largest Qing-era harbor became one district of Tainan City after the 2010 merger.

The origins of Tainan snacks are also pressed onto a late-Qing, early-Japanese timeline.

Du Hsiao Yueh danzai noodles were founded in 1895, the 20th year of the Guangxu reign. A Tainan fisherman named Hong Yutou sold noodles from a shoulder pole in front of Shuixian Temple during the fishing off-season, or “small months,” naming the business Du Hsiao Yueh, meaning “getting through the slow season,” and serving noodles mixed with a family recipe minced pork sauce²⁰. 1895 was the year the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed, Taiwan was ceded to Japan, and Liu Yongfu moved the capital to Tainan to continue resistance. It was also the year Hong Yutou carried his shoulder pole and sold noodles in Tainan’s prefectural city. Today the original Du Hsiao Yueh shop is still on Zhongzheng Road in Tainan.

Beef soup represents Tainan’s morning-market culture: fresh, warm-slaughtered yellow beef is scalded with hot broth to preserve tenderness. The old beef-soup shops around Guohua Street and Yongle Market peak from predawn into morning. Coffin bread was invented in the 1940s by Xu Liuyi, an old shop owner near Chihkan Tower in Tainan. Thick slices of white bread are fried into a box shape and filled with cream sauce and seafood; named for its coffin-like appearance, it is Taiwan’s only Western-style local snack²⁰.

💡 Did you know: Yongle Market, Guohua Street, Shennong Street, and Hai’an Road, the four places most beloved by Tainan’s young cultural crowd today, all sit on the post-siltation street pattern of the Five Channels of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Five Channels silted up and were abandoned after 1823; the harbor disappeared, but the streets remained. Three hundred years later, Tainan people drink coffee, sell cultural goods, and run guesthouses on the stone roads where merchant guilds once hauled sugar and rice ashore. Movements such as “Old House, New Life” and old-house preservation took particular root in Tainan because the old city fabric was not demolished in a single wave of urban renewal. Siltation in the late 19th century caused economic stagnation and population outflow in Tainan; looking back from the 21st century, that siltation became Tainan’s cultural asset. Failure became preservation. That is the historical rhythm of Tainan.

From Three Birds Lying in Blood to 6,988

On December 28, 2009, Taijiang National Park was established. The Taijiang National Park website states verbatim: “Established on December 28, 2009, it is Taiwan’s eighth national park and also Taiwan’s first urban national park.”²¹

It has 4,905 hectares of land area and a total land-and-sea area of 39,310 hectares. It includes two internationally important wetlands, the Zengwen River Estuary and Sicao, plus two nationally important wetlands, the Qigu Salt Fields and Yanshui River Estuary. It is Taiwan’s only wetland-type national park²¹.

But the true meaning of this national park is not on the map. It lies in the gunshots at the end of 1992.

At the end of 1992, there were only a little more than 200 black-faced spoonbills in the world. In Qigu, an illegal shooting occurred. Three birds lay in pools of blood; two were already dead when found, and one died soon after being sent to Taipei Zoo²². PanSci records verbatim: “At the end of 1992, when there were only a little over 200 black-faced spoonbills worldwide, an illegal shooting occurred in Qigu. Three black-faced spoonbills lay in pools of blood; two were already dead when discovered, and one died not long after being sent to Taipei Zoo.”²² It became front-page news in Taiwan and drew the attention of the international conservation community.

In 2002, about 300 hectares on the northern bank of the Zengwen River Estuary were formally designated as the “Black-faced Spoonbill Protection Area.” On December 25, 2009, the Qigu Black-faced Spoonbill Protection Area was incorporated into Taijiang National Park²². From those three black-faced spoonbills lying in blood to the January 2024 global census total of 6,988 birds. In 32 years, the global population increased thirtyfold. Taiwan’s Qigu Zengwen River Estuary wetland is the core wintering habitat for black-faced spoonbills worldwide, and more than half the global population comes to Taiwan each winter²².

Milkfish is another Tainan symbol spanning 400 years. During the Dutch period, roughly 1624-1662, milkfish aquaculture techniques were introduced from Indonesia to Taiwan, and Luermen, today’s Anping, was the earliest trial-culture site²³. The Luermen where Koxinga landed was also the Luermen where the Dutch introduced milkfish. In contemporary terms, Tainan’s milkfish aquaculture area is about 4,980 hectares, with annual output of about 24,000 tons, ranking first in Taiwan²³. In the 1980s, the fisher Lin Lietang achieved a breakthrough in breeding technology and succeeded in inducing natural spawning in milkfish, earning the title “Father of Milkfish.”

37 Districts, NT$1.5 Trillion, Southern Taiwan Science Park Surpasses Hsinchu Science Park

On December 25, 2010, Tainan County and Tainan City merged and were upgraded into a special municipality²⁴.

The Tainan City Government states verbatim: “On December 25, 2010 (Republic of China year 99), Tainan County and Tainan City merged and were called ‘Tainan City,’ with jurisdiction over 37 districts; the first mayor was Mr. Lai Ching-te.”²⁴ The six districts of the former Tainan City, Central-West, East, South, North, Anping, and Annan, plus the 31 townships, towns, and cities of the former Tainan County, were all reorganized as districts: Yongkang, Xinying, Yanshui, Baihe, Liuying, Houbi, Dongshan, Madou, Xiaying, Liujia, Guantian, Danei, Jiali, Xuejia, Xigang, Qigu, Jiangjun, Beimen, Xinhua, Shanhua, Xinshi, Anding, Shanshang, Yujing, Nanxi, Nanhua, Zuozhen, Rende, Guiren, Guanmiao, and Longqi²⁴.

Thirty-seven districts, from Yanshui District of the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks, to Yujing District of mangoes, to Xinshi District where Southern Taiwan Science Park is located, to Central-West District where Tang Te-chang Memorial Park stands. The geographical span runs from coastal wetlands, Qigu, to the foothills of Alishan, Nanhua, about 50 kilometers. The area is 2,191.6531 square kilometers, and the population is about 1.85 million people, roughly 1,849,762 in April 2026²⁴.

After the merger, the urban-rural gap widened. Yongkang District, with 235,000 people, and Annan District, with 205,000, stand against Longqi District, with only a little over 3,000 people²⁵. North of the Zengwen River, known as Xibei, townships such as Xinying, Yanshui, and Jiali have long suffered population outflow. South of the Zengwen River, known as Xinan, about three-quarters of the population lives there, and districts such as Yongkang grow year after year. One merger stuffed the three worlds of Yanshui, Jiali, and Yujing into the same ballot.

Then came Southern Taiwan Science Park.

The Southern Taiwan Science Park was established in 1996 in Xinshi District, Tainan. TSMC Fab 18 is TSMC’s most advanced mega-fab in Taiwan, producing the 3-nanometer process, with total investment of about NT$700 billion⁶. In 2023, Southern Taiwan Science Park’s annual revenue reached NT$1.5855 trillion, surpassing Hsinchu Science Park’s NT$1.42 trillion by NT$165.5 billion. Southern Taiwan Science Park took the revenue crown among Taiwan’s three major science parks from Hsinchu Science Park⁶.

📝 Curator’s note: From Chen Yonghua building the Confucius Temple in 1665, to Yoichi Hatta opening the Chianan Canal in 1930, to TSMC Fab 18 producing 3-nanometer chips in 2023, what Tainan does keeps changing, but it has repeatedly been “the largest-scale thing in Taiwan.” The 1665 Confucius Temple was the only enrollment site in all Taiwan in the early Qing period; the 1930 Wushantou Reservoir was then Asia’s largest and the world’s third-largest reservoir; the 2023 Southern Taiwan Science Park ranked first among Taiwan’s science parks by output value. This is not coincidence. Tainan has the central portion of the Chianan Plain, Taiwan’s largest plain at 4,550 km²; it has the population and infrastructural base left by 261 years as capital; it has the multilingual trading-city genes developed over 38 years of Dutch rule. When this land had to move from agriculture to industry, and from industry to technology, it had enough physical space and historical depth to absorb each upgrade. So “261 years as capital, 400 years of monuments, and 21st-century chips” are in fact three generations raised by the same land: Dutch people, Qing-era merchant guilds, and TSMC engineers doing entirely different things on the same middle stretch of the Chianan Plain, but using the same water, the Chianan Canal; the same land, the Tainan Plain; and the same extended area around the same harbor, Anping Harbor.

National Cheng Kung University is also pressed onto this timeline. On January 15, 1931, Tainan Technical College, established by the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office, was founded with three departments: mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and applied chemistry²⁶. In 1956, it was reorganized as Taiwan Provincial Cheng Kung University, with “Cheng Kung” commemorating the achievement of Prince of Yanping Koxinga in opening Taiwan. In 1971, it became National Cheng Kung University. Today it is located in Tainan’s East District, with nationally top-ranked engineering, architecture, and medical colleges. From the technical school of 1931 to Southern Taiwan Science Park’s NT$1.5855 trillion in 2023, NCKU sustains the evolutionary base from industry to technology.

The Siraya People Spent 389 Years Taking Their Name Back

On October 17, 2025, the Legislative Yuan passed the Pingpu Indigenous Peoples Status Act²⁷.

Return to the beginning of the timeline. In 1636, the Dutch missionary Georgius Candidius used Roman letters to write Siraya in Sinkan village⁸, leaving Taiwan’s first written record. But after the 17th century, the Siraya people began to be Sinicized, and the people of the four major communities, Sinkan, Soulang, Mattauw, and Baccloan, gradually went from being the main inhabitants of the Tainan Plain to being classified as “Pingpu,” plains Indigenous peoples, and excluded from the 16 Indigenous peoples recognized by the Republic of China.

On October 28, 2022, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of China ruled in the Siraya name-restoration case that the current Indigenous Status Act was unconstitutional and required amendments to be completed within three years²⁷. On October 17, 2025, the Legislative Yuan passed the Pingpu Indigenous Peoples Status Act. On October 23, 2025, President Lai Ching-te formally promulgated it. Siraya people in Tainan had fought for the restoration of Indigenous status for 25 years. After the constitutional victory in 2022, they formally obtained the legal status of Pingpu Indigenous peoples in October 2025²⁷. From Candidius opening a school in Sinkan village in 1636 to the Legislative Yuan passing the name-restoration law in 2025, the Siraya people spent 389 years taking their name back.

2024 was the 400th anniversary of Tainan’s founding.

The Tainan City Government promoted Tainan 400, with the core spirit: “Together Tainan, World Jiaopêi”²⁸. It sought to host three major national-level events in Tainan in the same year: the Taiwan Lantern Festival, the Creative Expo Taiwan, and the Taiwan Design Expo.

“Jiaopêi” (tsiâu-puê) is Taiwanese Hokkien, meaning social exchange, interaction, and mutual respect. In Tainan’s 400-year history, Dutch people, Siraya people, Han Chinese, Japanese, mainlander migrants, and new immigrants have all been present; “world jiaopêi” has always been part of Tainan’s DNA²⁸. ⚠️ In 2024, Mayor Huang Wei-che stated clearly that the framing “Tainan 400” was chosen to avoid being trapped in disputes over historical terminology, such as whether 1624 should be called the first year of Tainan’s founding, and instead to offer an inclusive interpretation of 400 years of plural history.

Return to that beach on February 9, 1662.

Two thousand Dutch people stood on the sand before Fort Zeelandia, waiting for eight ships to carry them away. Coyett handed the keys to Zheng officials. The 38-year Dutch period ended, the 22-year Ming Zheng period began, 201 years as a Qing capital followed, then 50 years of Japanese colonial rule and 80 years of the Republic of China, continuing to the present.

Next time you go to Tainan, do not only visit Chihkan Tower and drink beef soup. Try arriving first at Anping Fort at 7 a.m., and stand before the red-brick wall at the Fort Zeelandia ruins. This wall was completed in 1634, made from glutinous rice juice, syrup, sand, and oyster-shell powder. Then drive to Eternal Golden Castle and look at the red bricks below the four characters “Eternal Golden Castle” on the front gate. Some of them were taken from Fort Zeelandia, reused when Shen Baozhen built the battery in 1875 with Dutch fortress bricks. Then go to the plaque reading “Taiwan’s First Academy” in front of the Dacheng Hall of the Confucius Temple, the school Chen Yonghua advised Zheng Jing to establish in 1665. At noon, go to Tang Te-chang Memorial Park; that traffic circle is where Tang Te-chang was shot and fell at noon on March 13, 1947. In the afternoon, go to Shennong Street and drink a coffee. The place where you sit was once the stone-paved road where Five Channels merchant guilds hauled sugar and rice ashore from boats. At dusk, drive to the Qigu Salt Fields or Taijiang National Park to see black-faced spoonbills, whose numbers grew from 200 to 6,988. Then return at night to Yongle Market for a bowl of danzai noodles and a bowl of beef soup.

That flavor, from the bowl Hong Yutou sold from a shoulder pole in front of Shuixian Temple in 1895 to the bowl people line up for on Guohua Street in 2026, has never changed its recipe.

Tainan was the earliest place in Taiwan to be colonized, the earliest to establish a Han Chinese regime, the earliest to set up a prefecture, the earliest to run a school, the earliest to make solar salt, the earliest to build a battery, the earliest to open modern irrigation, the earliest to produce iconic snacks, and now the site of Taiwan’s largest science park. 261 years as capital, 400 years of monuments, and 21st-century chips: these three layers stacked on the same land are a compressed image of every historical possibility in Taiwan’s last 400 years.

Image Sources

This article uses five Wikimedia Commons CC-licensed images, hot-linked from the Wikimedia upload server:

Hero (frontmatter): Anping Fort — Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Former site of Fort Zeelandia, built by the Dutch East India Company beginning in 1624.
Scene §Chihkan Tower: Chihkan Tower in Tainan City — Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0. Former site of Fort Provintia, begun in 1653, and passed through five regimes over 300 years.
Scene §Confucius Temple: Dacheng Hall of Tainan Confucius Temple — Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0. Taiwan’s First Academy, established in 1665 on Chen Yonghua’s recommendation to Zheng Jing.
Scene §Eternal Golden Castle: Eternal Golden Castle — Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0. Begun in 1874 and completed in 1876, Taiwan’s only surviving bastion-style artillery fort.
Scene §Qigu Salt Mountain: Cigu Salt Mountain — Photo: Wikimedia Commons contributor, CC BY-SA 4.0. The 337-year history of Taiwan’s salt industry, founded on Chen Yonghua’s 1665 “switch from boiling to solar evaporation,” ended with Qigu’s final mechanized salt harvest in May 2002.

License terms: CC BY-SA 3.0 / CC BY-SA 4.0.

References

Fort Zeelandia — Wikipedia — Chinese Wikipedia entry on Fort Zeelandia. Complete architectural and functional information on the Dutch East India Company’s start of construction in 1624, completion in 1634, walls made from glutinous rice juice, syrup, sand, and oyster-shell powder, the three-level inner fort with bastions at all four corners and five cannons on each, and its role as the Dutch East India Company’s political and trading core in Taiwan for 38 years.↩
Siege of Fort Zeelandia by Koxinga — Wikipedia — Chinese Wikipedia entry. Complete landing process for Koxinga’s entry into the Taijiang Inland Sea from Luermen at dawn on April 30, 1661, with 400 warships and 25,000 troops; 6:30 a.m. Batavia time, 7:30 a.m. Taiwan time; the first day of the fourth month in the 15th year of the Yongli reign; and He Bin guiding the fleet through the Luermen channel.↩
Siege of Fort Zeelandia — English Wikipedia — English Wikipedia entry recording the precise timeline: Frederik Coyett signed the Koxinga-Dutch Treaty on February 1, 1662, and 2,000 Dutch people boarded eight ships and left the beach on February 9. The Chinese version states verbatim: “Coyett handed the keys of Fort Zeelandia to Zheng officials on the beach, and Koxinga also entered Fort Zeelandia to receive the fortress and the property inside it.” This article disambiguates the Chinese-English date discrepancy.↩
Tainan Confucius Temple — Official Website of Tainan Confucius Temple — Official Tainan Confucius Temple text: “Tainan Confucius Temple was founded in the 19th year of the Ming Yongli reign (1665). It was a school established during Zheng Jing’s rule on the recommendation of advisory military councilor Chen Yonghua to ‘build a temple to the sages and establish a school’” + “In the early Qing period, it was once the only place in all Taiwan where tongsheng students could enroll, and therefore was called ‘Taiwan’s First Academy.’” Includes the full background of Chen Yonghua’s recovery plan: “ten years of growth, ten years of education, ten years of gathering strength.”↩
On March 13, 1947, Tang Te-chang was executed by Chinese troops at the traffic circle in central Tainan — GJ Taiwan — GJ Taiwan historical memorial column, quoting verbatim: “On March 13, 1947, Tang Te-chang was executed by Chinese troops at the traffic circle in central Tainan” + “To protect those involved, he refused to give up any names even after undergoing various forms of torture” + “At noon on March 13, Tang Te-chang was bound and forced onto a truck to be paraded through the streets as a warning; with composure, he walked toward the execution ground. Finally, with the stirring cry ‘Long live the Taiwanese people!’ and the three gunshots that followed, Lawyer Tang’s life came to an end.”↩
Southern Taiwan Science Park’s 2023 output value of NT$1.5855 trillion surpasses Hsinchu Science Park — Economic Daily News — Economic Daily News report on Southern Taiwan Science Park output value, stating verbatim: “Southern Taiwan Science Park’s full-year 2023 revenue reached NT$1.5855 trillion, NT$165.5 billion more than Hsinchu Science Park’s NT$1.42 trillion.” Includes complete contemporary industry data on TSMC Fab 18’s 3-nanometer process, NT$700 billion investment, projected 2024 full-fab output value approaching NT$2 trillion, and the park’s role as the core of southern Taiwan’s semiconductor S-corridor.↩
A Tale of Two Tainan Cities: Fort Zeelandia and Fort Provintia — Taiwan Panorama — Taiwan Panorama in-depth report, stating verbatim: “Fort Zeelandia was built on the dunes, and Zeelandia Town was also constructed to the east of the fort” + “Provintia City developed in Chihkan in today’s Tainan urban area, and Chihkan Tower, formerly Fort Provintia, was built north of the city” + “It was built by the Dutch to consolidate their regime after the Guo Huaiyi Incident broke out in 1652.” Fort Provintia began construction in 1653 and was completed in 1655.↩
Sinkan Manuscripts and Romanized Records of the Siraya Language — StoryStudio — StoryStudio historical in-depth article stating verbatim: “Among Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples, the earliest language to be written was the Siraya language of the Tainan Plain; during the Dutch period it was also called the ‘Formosan language,’ and because it was written in Roman letters, people commonly called it ‘foreign letters’ in earlier times.” Includes the full written history: the Dutch opening Taiwan’s first school in Sinkan village on May 26, 1636; missionary Georgius Candidius writing Siraya in Roman letters; and the Sinkan Manuscripts continuing in use until 1813, the 18th year of the Jiaqing reign.↩
Koxinga — Wikipedia — Chinese Wikipedia entry on Koxinga. Complete 21-year Ming Zheng timeline: death on June 23, 1662, the eighth day of the fifth month in the 16th year of the Yongli reign, at age 38; only 13 months from the Taiwan campaign to his death; uncertain cause of death; Zheng Jing’s succession; Dongdu renamed Dongning in 1664; and Zheng Keshuang’s surrender to the Qing in 1683.↩
Chen Yonghua’s “switch from boiling to solar evaporation” and Taiwan’s salt industry — Academia Sinica — Academia Sinica research on salt-industry history. Chen Yonghua’s 1665 reform of salt production by “switching from boiling to solar evaporation,” building salt pans by the sea, laying broken tiles, channeling water into salt ponds, and crystallizing salt by sun exposure, known as the tile-paved solar evaporation method; the reform laid the modern foundation of Taiwan’s salt industry and provides the full historical context for the later Qigu Salt Fields and Jingzaijiao in Beimen.↩
Official Historical Development of Tainan City Government — Official Tainan City Government historical development, stating verbatim: “In 1624, the Dutch entered Tainan and established a colonial regime to expand their trade monopoly, successively building Fort Zeelandia (the predecessor of today’s Anping Fort) and Fort Provintia (the predecessor of today’s Chihkan Tower)” + “In April 1661, Koxinga (1624-1662) led 400 warships and 25,000 troops into Taiwan, besieged the city and forced the Dutch to sign surrender papers, establishing the Zheng kingdom, making Taiwan Dongdu and establishing Chengtian Prefecture” + “In 1683 (the 22nd year of Kangxi) ... the following year Taiwan was incorporated into the Qing Empire; in April, Taiwan Prefecture was established, with its seat in Dong’an Ward and under the jurisdiction of Fujian Province.” Includes the official record of Taiwan becoming a province in 1885, the provincial capital moving north, and Tainan Prefecture being renamed.↩
Five Channels Cultural Zone and the 1823 land formation of the Taijiang Inland Sea — Wikipedia — Chinese Wikipedia entry on the Five Channels. Complete geographical history of the most important commercial waterways in Tainan Prefecture from the Qianlong to Jiaqing reigns, from north to south Xingangzai Channel, Fotou Channel, Nanshi Channel, Nanhe Channel, and Anhai Channel; the 300-year history of Shennong Street, formerly Beishi Street; the July 1823 storm in the third year of Daoguang, when the Zengwen River changed course, carried massive earth and rock, and turned large areas of the Taijiang Inland Sea into land within about seven days; Anping Harbor’s connection to land; and the street pattern that remains fully preserved today.↩
Eternal Golden Castle, also known as Erkunshen Battery — Monuments Operation Section, Tainan City Government Cultural Affairs Bureau — Official record of the Tainan City Government Cultural Affairs Bureau’s monuments section: “Construction began in September of the 13th year of Tongzhi (1874) and was completed in August of the second year of Guangxu (1876).” Full architectural and military history: the 1874 Mudan Incident as cause; Fujian naval commissioner Shen Baozhen coming to Taiwan; French engineers Bordeaux and Loffre as designers; four-corner bastion structure and Taiwan’s only surviving bastion-style artillery fort; five British-made Armstrong 18-ton muzzle-loading cannons; the front inscription “Eternal Golden Castle” and rear inscription “Pillar Amid Ten Thousand Currents” both written by Shen Baozhen; some materials taken from the collapsed red bricks of Fort Zeelandia; and the 1884 Sino-French War, when French forces shelled waters off Anping and the Eternal Golden Castle garrison fired back and drove them away, preventing a landing.↩
Tang Te-chang — Wikipedia — Chinese Wikipedia entry on Tang Te-chang. Complete biography and memorial history: born January 6, 1907; father from Uto, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, and mother from Nanhua, Tainan; audited courses at the Faculty of Law of Chuo University in Tokyo; passed the “Higher Civil Service Examination, Judicial Section” in September 1941; registered as a barrister, or lawyer, with the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office in September 1943; head of the public order section of the Tainan branch of the February 28 Incident Settlement Committee; arrested after the Nationalist Army’s reorganized 21st Division entered Tainan on March 11, 1947; publicly executed at Minsheng Green Park on March 13; Minsheng Green Park renamed Tang Te-chang Memorial Park in 1998; and Lai Ching-te declaring every March 13 “Tainan City Justice and Courage Memorial Day” in 2014.↩
Rev. Thomas Barclay and the peaceful opening of Tainan in 1895 — Presbyterian Church in Taiwan — Historical records of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. Full record: Thomas Barclay (1849-1935) arrived in Taiwan on June 5, 1875; founded Tainan Theological College and Seminary in 1877, whose predecessor was a missionary training class; founded the Taiwan Prefectural City Church News, the first church newspaper in the Far East, on July 12, 1885; Liu Yongfu crossed back to Xiamen on October 20, 1895; on October 21, gentry inside the city, Chen Xiuwu and Wu Daoyuan, begged Barclay and Pastor Song Zhongjian to come forward and negotiate with Nogi Maresuke of the Japanese Army’s Second Division; and Japanese troops entered Tainan through the Small South Gate, peacefully opening the city and avoiding a massacre.↩
Tainan Prefecture during the Japanese colonial period — Wikipedia — Chinese Wikipedia entry on Tainan Prefecture. Complete history of changes in administrative status during the Japanese colonial period: Tainan Prefecture established in the 1920 administrative reform, the ninth year of Taisho, with its prefectural office in Tainan City; the 17th governor-general Kobayashi Seizo promoting the three major policies of imperialization, industrialization, and southward-base formation; Tainan City as Taiwan’s second-largest city in the 1930s, after Taipei; its gradual overtaking by Kaohsiung after the rise of Kaohsiung Harbor; and Tainan’s fall to third place after Kaohsiung annexed surrounding urban areas in the 1940s.↩
The 1930 opening of the Chianan Canal: Yoichi Hatta’s hydraulic revolution — GJ Taiwan — GJ Taiwan historical memorial column, stating verbatim: “On April 10, 1930, the Chianan Canal, then the largest and most technically advanced irrigation facility in all Asia, finally began operating smoothly.” Includes complete engineering data: led by Japanese engineer Yoichi Hatta; took 10 years, 1920-1930; irrigation channels totaling 10,000 kilometers; drainage channels totaling 6,000 kilometers; irrigated 150,000 hectares of farmland on the Chianan Plain; benefited about 600,000 farmers; and Wushantou Reservoir, with a dam height of 56 meters and storage capacity of 150 million tons, was Asia’s largest and the world’s third-largest reservoir at the time.↩
Origins of the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks — Tainan City Government Tourism Bureau — Tainan City Government travel website on the origins of the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks, stating verbatim: “The Yanshui Beehive Fireworks originated in the 11th year of the Qing Guangxu reign (1885). At the time, the epidemic in the Yanshui area would not subside. Residents prayed for the protection of Guansheng Dijun of the Martial Temple, and later decided to invite the deity’s palanquin to make a three-day procession from the 13th to the 15th day of the first lunar month. Believers set off firecrackers along the route of the palanquin to frighten and drive away the plague god. After being cleansed by sulfurous smoke and gunpowder, the epidemic was indeed removed.” Includes full cultural background: inclusion in the Tourism Bureau calendar in 2015; “sky lanterns in the north, beehive fireworks in the south”; ranking alongside the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival as Taiwan’s two great northern and southern Lantern Festival events; and selection among the “world’s top ten best festivals.”↩
History of Yuejin Harbor: first the prefecture, second Lukang, third Monga, fourth Yuejin — Yanshui District Office — Yanshui District Office records on Yuejin Harbor history. Full geographical history: early Qing Taiwan’s commercial harbor ranking, “first the prefecture, second Lukang, third Monga, fourth Yuejin”; Yuejin Harbor named for its crescent-shaped river channel; the harbor on the Daofeng Inland Sea; later land formation through river sedimentation, becoming today’s plains of Yanshui, Xuejia, and Jiali; and its transformation into Yanshui District of Tainan City after the 2010 merger.↩
Du Hsiao Yueh danzai noodles and Tainan snacks — Official Du Hsiao Yueh Original Shop — Official history of Du Hsiao Yueh Original Shop. Founded in 1895, the 20th year of the Qing Guangxu reign, when Tainan fisherman Hong Yutou sold noodles from a shoulder pole in front of Shuixian Temple during the fishing off-season, the “small months”; “Du Hsiao Yueh” means getting through the slow season; family-recipe minced pork sauce noodles; and Hong Yutou’s descendants later opened the authentic Du Hsiao Yueh Original Shop on Zhongzheng Road in Tainan. Includes the full snack history of Tainan beef soup culture, with fresh warm-slaughtered yellow beef scalded by hot broth around Guohua Street and Yongle Market morning markets, and coffin bread, invented in the 1940s by Xu Liuyi, an old shop owner near Chihkan Tower, using thick slices of white bread fried into a box shape and filled with cream sauce and seafood, Taiwan’s only Western-style local snack.↩
Taijiang National Park official website — Official Taijiang National Park website, stating verbatim: “Established on December 28, 2009, it is Taiwan’s eighth national park and also Taiwan’s first urban national park.” Complete official data: land area of 4,905 hectares and total land-and-sea area of 39,310 hectares; two internationally important wetlands, Zengwen River Estuary and Sicao, plus two nationally important wetlands, Qigu Salt Fields and Yanshui River Estuary; Taiwan’s only wetland-type national park; and the Taijiang area as the world’s most important wintering habitat for black-faced spoonbills.↩
Black-faced spoonbill wintering and the 1992 Qigu shooting incident — PanSci — PanSci in-depth report, stating verbatim: “At the end of 1992, when there were only a little over 200 black-faced spoonbills worldwide, an illegal shooting occurred in Qigu. Three black-faced spoonbills lay in pools of blood; two were already dead when discovered, and one died not long after being sent to Taipei Zoo.” Includes complete conservation history: in 2002, about 300 hectares on the northern bank of the Zengwen River Estuary were officially designated as the “Black-faced Spoonbill Protection Area”; on December 25, 2009, the Qigu Black-faced Spoonbill Protection Area was incorporated into Taijiang National Park; the January 2024 global census total was 6,988 birds; more than half the global population comes to Taiwan each winter; and Taiwan’s Qigu Zengwen River Estuary wetland is the world’s most important black-faced spoonbill wintering habitat.↩
Milkfish: 300 years of fish along the Tainan coast — Fisheries Agency, Ministry of Agriculture — Fisheries Agency data on the milkfish industry. Full fisheries history: Dutch period, roughly 1624-1662, introduced milkfish aquaculture techniques from Indonesia to Taiwan; Luermen, today’s Anping, was the earliest trial-culture site; Tainan City’s milkfish aquaculture area is about 4,980 hectares and annual output about 24,000 tons, ranking first in Taiwan; main distribution in Qigu, Annan, Beimen, Xuejia, and Jiangjun districts; and in the 1980s, the fisher Lin Lietang achieved a breakthrough in breeding technology and succeeded in allowing milkfish to spawn naturally, earning the title “Father of Milkfish.”↩
2010 Tainan city-county merger and upgrade into a special municipality — Official Historical Development of Tainan City Government — Same as [^11]. Tainan City Government states verbatim: “On December 25, 2010 (Republic of China year 99), Tainan County and Tainan City merged and were called ‘Tainan City,’ with jurisdiction over 37 districts; the first mayor was Mr. Lai Ching-te.” Complete administrative development: the six districts of the former Tainan City, Central-West, East, South, North, Anping, and Annan, plus the 31 townships, towns, and cities of the former Tainan County were all reorganized as districts, Yongkang, Xinying, Yanshui, Baihe, Liuying, Houbi, Dongshan, Madou, Xiaying, Liujia, Guantian, Danei, Jiali, Xuejia, Xigang, Qigu, Jiangjun, Beimen, Xinhua, Shanhua, Xinshi, Anding, Shanshang, Yujing, Nanxi, Nanhua, Zuozhen, Rende, Guiren, Guanmiao, and Longqi; area 2,191.6531 square kilometers; and population about 1.85 million, roughly 1,849,762 in April 2026.↩
Urban-rural gap widens 10 years after Tainan city-county merger — Central News Agency — CNA review of the 10 years after Tainan’s city-county merger. Complete data analysis of severe population imbalance: Yongkang District, 235,000, plus Annan District, 205,000, versus Longqi District, a little over 3,000 people; continued population outflow from Xibei townships north of the Zengwen River, including Xinying, Yanshui, and Jiali; about three-quarters of the population living south of the Zengwen River, in Xinan; continued growth in districts such as Yongkang; and the widening urban-rural gap after the merger.↩
National Cheng Kung University history — National Cheng Kung University official website — Official National Cheng Kung University history. Complete institutional history: on January 15, 1931, Tainan Technical College, established by the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office, was founded with departments of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and applied chemistry; in March 1946 it was renamed Taiwan Provincial Tainan Junior College of Technology, and in October it was upgraded to Taiwan Provincial College of Engineering; in 1956 it became Taiwan Provincial Cheng Kung University, with “Cheng Kung” commemorating Prince of Yanping Koxinga’s achievement in opening Taiwan; in 1971 it became National Cheng Kung University; and today it is located in Tainan’s East District, with nationally top-ranked engineering, architecture, and medical colleges.↩
After the grand justices ruled the Indigenous Status Act unconstitutional, the Siraya people’s unfinished road of “willing to be Indigenous” — The Reporter — The Reporter in-depth report. Complete history of the name-restoration movement: on October 28, 2022, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of China ruled in the Siraya name-restoration case that the current Indigenous Status Act was unconstitutional and required amendment within three years; on October 17, 2025, the Legislative Yuan passed the Pingpu Indigenous Peoples Status Act; on October 23, 2025, President Lai Ching-te formally promulgated it; and Siraya people in Tainan, after fighting for restoration of Indigenous status for 25 years, formally obtained the legal status of “Pingpu Indigenous peoples.”↩
Tainan 400: Together Tainan, World Jiaopêi — Tainan City Government official website — Official Tainan 400 event website. Complete official event framework: the core spirit “Together Tainan, World Jiaopêi”; the main axes “cherish tradition, create the contemporary, look toward the future”; efforts to bring three major national-level events to Tainan in the same year, the Taiwan Lantern Festival as host, Creative Expo Taiwan, and Taiwan Design Expo; “jiaopêi” (tsiâu-puê), a Taiwanese Hokkien term meaning exchange, interaction, and mutual respect; the idea that Dutch people, Siraya people, Han Chinese, Japanese, mainlander migrants, and new immigrants in Tainan’s 400-year history make “world jiaopêi” part of Tainan’s DNA; and Mayor Huang Wei-che’s inclusive interpretation of 400 years of plural history to avoid being trapped in disputes over historical terminology.↩