Tainan, officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and commonly called the "prefectural capital" for its 263-year history as the capital of Taiwan under Dutch rule, the Kingdom of Tungning and later Qing dynasty rule until 1887. Tainan's complex history of comebacks, redefinitions and renewals inspired its popular nickname "the Phoenix City". Tainan was classified as a "Sufficiency"-level global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network in 2020, but was not classified in 2022 and 2024.
As Taiwan's oldest urban area with over 400 years of history, Tainan was initially established by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as a ruling and trading base called Fort Zeelandia during the Dutch colonial rule on the island. After Koxinga seized the Dutch fort in 1662, Tainan remained as the capital of the Tungning Kingdom ruled by the House of Koxinga until 1683 and afterwards the capital of Taiwan Prefecture under the Qing dynasty until 1887, when the new provincial capital was first moved to present-day Taichung, and then eventually to Taipei. Following the cession of Taiwan, Tainan became the second capital of the short-lived Republic of Formosa from June to October 1895 until the Capitulation of Tainan by the invading forces of the Japanese Empire. Under Japanese rule, the city was the seat of Tainan Prefecture. After the surrender of Japan in World War II, the Republic of China took control of Taiwan in 1945 and reorganized the city as a provincial city in Taiwan Province, a role that would remain in place until 2010 when the city was merged with nearby Tainan County into a new special municipality.
The legacy of Tainan's long history of establishment has left significant impact on Taiwan, and its former name, Tayouan, has been claimed to be the origin of the name "Taiwan". It is also one of Taiwan's cultural capitals, for its rich folk cultures including the famous local street food and traditional cuisine, extensively preserved Taoist rites and other living local traditions covering everything from childbirth to funerals. The city houses the first Confucian school–temple in Taiwan, built in 1665, the remains of the Eastern and Southern gates of the old city, and countless other historical monuments. In recent decades, the city has become a major global hub for the semiconductor industry, driven by the development of the Southern Taiwan Science Park, where advanced manufacturing facilities (notably TSMC's) produce nearly all of the world's high-end AI chips.
History
Early history
Archaeological excavations in Zuojhen District suggest that the Tainan region has been inhabited for at least 20,000 to 31,000 years. The indigenous Siraya tribe dominated the region by the 16th century. The Sakam people of the Sinkan sub-tribe inhabited the area of the present-day city. Other Sirayan sub-tribes, including the Soelangh, Mattauw and Baccloangh inhabited the surrounding area.
By the late 16th century, Chinese merchants and fishermen had set up several bases along the west coast of the island, including a sandbar across the Taikang Inner Sea (Chinese: 臺江內海; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-kang lāi-hái) off the bay of Sakam village (modern-day Fort Provintia). The Chinese adopted Taioan (modern-day Anping) as the name of the sandbar. Slightly north of Taioan, along the shoreline near Bassemboy (北線尾; Pak-siàn-bóe), Japanese traders established bases for trade with China. The early Chinese and Japanese also traded with the Sirayan people. Salt and food was exchanged for deer hides and dried deer meat. The Siraya people were influenced by both Chinese and Japanese cultures and lifestyles. They started to use Chinese words in their language, use Japanese tantō in ritual events, and also migrated inland due to the influx of newcomers. By the time the Europeans arrived, the influence of Chinese and Japanese traders and fishermen was already prominent.
Dutch colony
Early Dutch colonists had attempted but failed to control Macau and the Penghu islands. In July 1622, the Dutch East India Company textile merchant Cornelis Reyersz sailed to Taiwan in search of a suitable location to build a trading post. In 1624 he established a small fort named 'Orange' on the sandy peninsula they called Tayouan (modern-day Anping). The fort was then expanded and renamed Fort Zeelandia. The settlement was initially designed as a base to attack their Spanish rivals and as a trading post between China and Batavia in Indonesia. Later the post became the center of Dutch trade between China, Japan and Europe. During the governorship of Pieter Nuyts (1627–29), there was hostility between the Dutch and Japanese merchants, leading at one point to Nuyts being held hostage by a Japanese trader, Hamada Yahee.
The Dutch pacification campaign on Formosa was a series of military actions and diplomatic moves undertaken in 1635 and 1636. They aimed at subduing hostile aboriginal villages in the south-western region of the island. In 1642 the Dutch seized the Spanish garrison at Santisima Trinidad in Keelung. The Dutch East India Company became the first authority to claim control of the whole of Formosa, with Fort Zeelandia as the seat of government.
Tensions arose between the Dutch and the Chinese inhabitants of Taiwan due to heavy Dutch taxation and Dutch participation in plunder during the collapse of the Ming dynasty. Eventually, this led to the brief, but bloody, Guo Huaiyi Rebellion in 1652. The Dutch crushed the revolt only with the help of the local Sinkanese.
The settlements near to Fort Zeelandia expanded as a result of the Dutch trading post in the area. In 1653, the Dutch built a new fort, Fort Provintia, in the Sakam area as a center for an agricultural colony. The Dutch encouraged Chinese farmers to migrate to Taiwan to grow rice and sugar cane. The Dutch settlement in southern Taiwan was so successful that, by the 1650s, it had overtaken Batavia.
Kingdom of Tungning
Koxinga (also known as Zheng Chenggong) was a Ming loyalist and chief commander of the Ming troops on the maritime front for the later emperors of the withering dynasty. In 1661, Koxinga attacked the Dutch colonists in Taiwan. After a nine-month siege, the Dutch Governor of Taiwan, Frederik Coyett, surrendered Fort Zeelandia to Koxinga on February 1, 1662. This effectively ended 38 years of Dutch rule on Taiwan. Koxinga then devoted himself to transforming Taiwan into a military base for loyalists who wanted to restore the Ming dynasty.
Koxinga set about making Taiwan a base for the Ming loyalist movement. Fort Provintia was renamed Tungtu, and Fort Zeelandia became Anping. Koxinga set up military colonies on the surrounding plains to help feed his forces. Many suburbs surrounding Tainan City today include in their names "Ying", "Jia", and "Tian", all derived from this event. After the death of Koxinga in 1662, his son, Zheng Jing, changed the name of Dongdu to Dong Ning. His chief minister, Chen Yonghua, introduced Chinese bureaucracy, built the first Confucian temple on the island, and introduced the method of salt production to coastal areas. The British were invited to set up a trading post in Anping to continue trade between Taiwan, Japan, and South East Asia. This helped to maintain the region as a center of trade.
Qing dynasty
The death of Zheng Jing in 1681 was followed by a struggle for succession. Seizing the advantage presented by the infighting, on July 17, 1683, Qing naval commander Shi Lang defeated the Tungning fleet in the Battle of Penghu. Two days later, Qing troops landed at Tungning and encountered little resistance. In 1684 the kingdom was incorporated into the Qing Empire as part of Fujian province, ending two decades of rule by the Zheng family. Taiwan Prefecture was established, with its prefectural seat Taiwanfu at modern-day Tainan. Taiwan County is also established as the first county of the Prefecture, located around the prefecture seat.
In 1721, Chinese peasants and indigenous tribes rose in rebellion against Qing misrule. The rebels, led by Zhu Yigui, captured Tainan without a fight. Turmoil ensued as the rebels soon fought amongst themselves. It was only after a Qing army was dispatched from mainland China that order was restored. Zhu was captured and executed. As Qing law prohibited the building of city walls in Taiwan, Qing authorities decided to create a defensive boundary around the city by growing bamboo around the perimeter. After several further uprisings across the island, work on a city wall began in the late 1780s.
A flood in 1823 brought rich silt from nearby rivers, which formed a widespread new fertile plain across the Taijiang bay area between Tainan and Anping. A canal system called Go-tiau-kang (五條港; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Gō͘-tiâu-káng) was built to keep the port in Tainan functioning but prevented large ships from entering the bay.
From 1825 until 1866 a shipyard in Tainan produced warships for the Qing navy from native wood.
After 174 years of restrictions on trade with the Europeans, the Qing reopened Anping port as part of the Tianjin treaty following the Second Opium War in 1858. The Anping Customs house was established in 1864. Western merchants built trading posts near the remains of Fort Zeelandia.
Following the murder of 54 Japanese sailors by Paiwan aborigines near the southwestern tip of Taiwan in 1871, the punitive Japanese Expedition of 1874 to Taiwan revealed the fragility of the Qing dynasty's hold on Taiwan. As a result, the Qing sent the imperial commissioner Shen Baozhen to Taiwan to strengthen its defense. In Tainan, Shen made several efforts to modernize the defenses including inviting French engineers to design the Eternal Golden Castle in Erkunshen. He also recommended setting up a telegraph cable link between Tainan and Amoy. Some parts of the castle were built using bricks taken from Fort Zeelandia.
After over 200 years of development, Tainan had become the largest city in Taiwan and a Chinese city with foreign influence. The following is a description of the city by the Scottish missionary William Campbell upon his first arrival to the island in 1871:
As to Taiwan-fu itself, I may say that the brick wall which surrounds it is about fifteen feet in thickness, twenty-five in height, and some five miles in circumference. Lofty watch-towers are built over the four main gateways, and large spaces within the city are given to the principal temples and yamens—or quarters occupied by the civil and military mandarins. There is much need in Taiwan-fu for the carrying out of a City Improvement Scheme. Pleasant walks, no doubt, there are, and some of the shops have an appearance which is decidedly attractive; but, as a rule, the streets are narrow, winding, ill-paved, and odorous.
In 1885, the Qing government commenced work to develop the island into Taiwan Province. The capital of the island (and its designation as "Taiwanfu") was moved to Toatun (modern-day Taichung). The name of the old Taiwanfu was changed to Tainanfu, the seat of Tainan Prefecture.
Japanese rule
As a consequence of the Chinese losing the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were ceded to Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The Republic of Formosa was proclaimed in Tainan in May 1895, in an effort to forestall the incoming Japanese occupation. A Japanese army arrived at Tainan in October 1895. Liu Yongfu and the other Republican leaders fled, leaving the city in disarray. A Scottish missionary, Thomas Barclay, was chosen by local elites and foreign merchants to negotiate the Japanese entry into the city. As a result, Tainan was taken without resistance. Under Japanese rule, Tainan was initially administered under Tainan Ken (臺南縣). With a population of about 50,000 in 1904, Tainan was Taiwan's most populous city.
The anti-Japanese uprising known as the Tapani Incident began in Ta-pa-ni (modern-day Yujing) on April 9, 1915. The revolt, led by Yu Qingfang, spread quickly across the whole island and was supported by both Chinese and indigenous Taiwanese. The Japanese crushed the uprising. Many villages were destroyed and thousands of people were killed during the repression which followed. Yu Qingfang was captured on August 22, 1915. More than 800 people were sentenced to death in Tainan. Over 100 of them were executed while the rest were pardoned by the new Taishō Emperor. The place where the rebellion began, Xilai Temple in Tainan (臺南西來庵), was demolished. The event marked a turning point in Japanese policy from forced pacification to full integration of Taiwan into the Japanese Empire.
The Japanese renamed the city to Tainan Chō (臺南廳) in 1901, and then Tainan Shū (臺南州) in 1920. Tainan Prefecture included modern-day Yunlin, Chiayi, and the wider region of Tainan. Tainan served as the capital city. The Japanese transformed Tainan by building modern infrastructure, including schools, a courthouse, city hall, new telecommunication facilities, an extensive freight and passenger rail network, a new Anping canal replacing the Go-tiau-kang, an airport, and an irrigation system across the Tainan and Chiayi regions. Modern urban designs were introduced; old narrow streets and city walls were demolished and replaced with wide streets that form the cityscape of the modern-day Tainan city center. They also introduced much needed sanitary reforms.
Republic of China
The Republic of China (ROC) took over Taiwan on October 25, 1945, after World War II. Tainan City and Tainan County were established and became separate local entities under Taiwan Province in 1946. There was civil unrest in Tainan as part of the February 28 Incident in 1947. Tang De-Jhang, an ethnic Japanese man and Japanese educated lawyer, was a member of government which set up "The February 28 Incident Commission" and a popular candidate for city mayor, was accused of being a separatist and arrested by the ROC army on March 11. He was tortured and executed the next day in the park in front of Tainan City Hall (now named Tang Te-chang Memorial Park). Tang was posthumously pronounced not guilty by court later in March. Like other regions in Taiwan, many people in Tainan suffered for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party) during the autocratic era.