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Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan, is a city that you want to get lost in. The city is known for its unique blend of traditional and modern architecture, vibrant nightlife, and delicious street food - and when you start walking through it streets, you’ll realize that this place is complex and diverse. In this video we break down the map of Taipei and look at some key historical landmarks to understand how it became what it is today.
Further reading: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kSiJw30whKeNAxSwBYyYhN5arNwNRKF-NuXMvrmAbKA/edit?usp=sharing
We made a Thatch guide so you can find things you saw in this video:
https://www.thatch.co/guide/1ugckxkyyc4l5/view
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 A City you Want to Get Lost In
00:53 Taiwan in Context
02:23 City Geography
02:56 First Settlements
04:24 the Walled City
05:39 Japanese Colinisation
06:35 Taihoku City Planning
07:20 Japanese Architectural Style
08:11 Grand Boulevards
08:43 the Kuomintang
10:33 Rapid Expansion
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0:00
Taipei is a city that you want to get lost in
0:12
With its cacophony of scooters, its intoxicating street food aromas, and its tunnel-like streets
0:18
it plays host to a variety of cultures that have come together to form a unique Asian identity
0:25
But getting here wasn't easy. Over the past 150 years Taipei has gone from a walled city
0:31
to a Japanese colonial city to the modern capitalist powerhouse that it is today
0:36
and all of these changes can be traced on the map. So let's go
0:40
Okay, so before we can jump in, I need to explain a little bit of Taiwan's history to you, the whole island
0:59
Even though today most of Taiwan is ethnically Han Chinese, the island has been inhabited by many different cultures
1:07
and that's why a lot of places will have three or four different historical names and often
1:12
a place will be spelt one way in english and pronounced another way the first people to
1:17
inhabit taiwan are known as taiwanese indigenous peoples but also austronesians now you might find
1:24
austronesians in places like fiji new zealand madagascar that's because these people started
1:30
in Taiwan and then ended up sailing all across the Indo-Pacific. So for ancient Taiwan think less
1:38
of Mulan and more of Moana. There were at least 26 indigenous languages spoken on the island of
1:45
Taiwan and some of them are even being spoken today. Taiwan got the name Formosa which means
1:51
beautiful in Portuguese when a bunch of Portuguese sailors sailed past the island and were like wow
1:57
What a beautiful island. Since then the island's been colonized by Dutch and Spanish merchants
2:02
Ming pirate lords, Qing imperialists, Japanese colonists and finally Chinese nationalists fleeing
2:09
a civil war. And that's a lot of history that we don't have time to cover in this video. The point
2:14
is that all of these people brought their own cultures and influences to the island
2:17
and traces of them can be found all over the city of Taipei. Okay so let's zoom back in
2:27
This area here is known as the Taipei Basin, an ancient lake bed surrounded by hills
2:31
mountains and volcanoes. In fact, there are 241 named mountain peaks within the city limits of Taipei
2:42
Running straight through the city is the Danxue River, which is fed by the Keelung and Xindian Rivers
2:49
If we go back in time, we can see that Taipei is a collection of a bunch of smaller settlements
2:53
that all got absorbed into one big thing. Originally, the Taipei Basin was inhabited by a people group known as the Kitagalan
3:01
When the Spanish came to the north of the island to settle, they focused on areas of Marazam interests like Keelang and Danshui
3:08
And they probably settled on places that the Kitagalan had already been living
3:13
But eventually, people from the south coast of China, coming from provinces like Fujian, came to settle this region
3:18
And they started settling along the Danshui River. Starting with the oldest neighborhood in Taipei, Wanhua
3:24
which was first called Bangka by the indigenous people. And Daraocheng, which was first called Tuatusha in Hokkien
3:33
Okay so pardon my pronunciation but this is Dihua Street which was part of old Tuatusha Today it called Dadaocheng It the oldest street in Taipei There lots of red brick buildings here lots of street ornaments
3:45
There's tons of markets and stalls, and it really has this unique Taiwanese vibe to it
3:53
These first southern Chinese immigrants brought their religion, culture, and cuisine to Taipei
3:59
And you can very easily see this in the design of the oldest temples in the city
4:07
All throughout Spanish, Dutch and Ming occupation, most of the island's economic activity happened in the south
4:14
where the older colonial cities were, like Tainan. But there were a few things that happened that moved the center of Taiwan's gravity
4:21
from Tainan to Taipei. After the end of the Opium War, Danshui became a treaty port, which meant that Britain could come in and trade here on their own terms
4:36
The Brits were mainly interested in Taiwan's sweet, sweet tea. This is a map of Taipei's tea fields, and you can see they all sit here on these high slopes surrounding the Taipei Basin
4:47
This, along with Danshui's new treaty port status, made Danshui the hottest place to buy tea
4:52
So the Qing government took notice of this and ordered the construction of a new walled city
4:57
in a paddy field between the original settlements of Dadaocheng and Bangka
5:02
The wall city effectively had two designers, Governor Chen Yuying and designer Liu Ao
5:07
Both of these designers tried to implement principles of feng shui to their city planning
5:12
but they differed on which principles to prioritize. After Chen Yuying established the street grid on one axis
5:18
Liu Ao went and rotated the axis of the walls to frame a proximity to the mountains
5:22
This results in a unique layout where the grid and the walls are kind of off-kilter to each other
5:29
Unfortunately for the Qing, this would be the last walled city that they ever built
5:33
and the walls would only stand for another decade. After the Sino-Japanese wall, the Qing had to hand over Taiwan to Japan
5:49
as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Taiwan was Japan's first colony and Japan was eager to show the world that it could beat Europe at its own game
6:00
So the plan was to use Taiwan as a way for Japan to limit its dependence on the rest of the world
6:05
They were less interested in Taiwan's tea and more interested in stuff like coal
6:10
They also brought rice and sugar to the island. And even though the stuff didn't grow that well in Taiwan, it at least meant that Japan wouldn't have to import it from somewhere else
6:20
And interestingly enough, Japan's version of colonialism was genuinely different from Europe's
6:26
They heavily invested in infrastructure and education on Taiwan because they thought that in the long run, this would make Taiwan more of an asset to Japan
6:35
Japan laid out the groundwork of a city plan that would end up being what we know as modern Taipei, starting from the walled city and stretching out into these roads you see on the map here
6:45
In 1895 the Japanese government started tearing down the old walls of Taipei
6:50
The city walls were demolished and replaced with grand three-laned ring boulevards with roundabouts to act as nodes and the inner city grid was
6:58
expanded with some snaky old roads straightened and some neighborhoods rebuilt to form a grid system. The city wall and its eventual destruction is one
7:06
of the most notable old influences on the modern map of Taipei Four of the five original city gates still stand today And they have metro stations and neighborhoods named after them So the Japanese colonization of Taiwan coincided
7:22
with a period back in Japan where they were trying to intentionally modernize themselves
7:27
They invited European scholars and architects to Japan to exchange knowledge and techniques
7:33
which resulted in a style known as Gyo-fu. A lot of these buildings have been preserved
7:37
and the Taipei government still uses them to this day. So we're here in front of the Red House
7:46
It's a great example of how Japanese architecture influenced the city. This was built in 1907
7:52
It used to be a market and then it became various different things over the years
7:56
like a cinema and a theatre. And it's a great place to actually check out some Japanese architecture for yourself
8:03
Like the government buildings, you can only really see from the outside. It's a great place to also buy some Taiwanese crafts and gifts and the like
8:10
Another European trope that the Japanese implemented was to build grand boulevards all over the city
8:16
reminiscent of the boulevards of Paris. You can see these 30-meter-wide city roads on the map in red
8:22
with much wider tree-lined grand boulevards in green running between them. All of this infrastructure and work that the Japanese had done had caused Taipei's population to double
8:34
Taipei's population had gone from 46,000 to 100,000, and 88% of the residents of Inner Taipei were Japanese
8:44
So while Japan was ruling Taiwan, mainland China had ended almost four millennia of dynastic rule
8:50
when Sun Yat-sen launched a bunch of rebellions against the Qing Empire
8:55
Culminating with the revolution of Shanghai in 1911, this is when the ROC was born or Republic of China
9:03
which was led by the Kuomintang government or KMT. In 1945, Tahoku was severely bombed by the US and nationalist China
9:13
claiming the lives of 3,000 people and damaging crucial infrastructure and government facilities
9:19
And because they were on the losing side of the war, Japan had to surrender Taiwan to the ROC that very same year
9:26
And this was really a tumultuous time for Taiwan. Up until this time, no Mandarin had been spoken on the island
9:32
The ROC forcibly repatriated 90% of the Japanese population. They also dealt out harsh punishments for political dissent
9:40
The most notorious clash between the ROC and the local Taiwanese happened on February 8, 1947
9:46
when the KMT suppressed an anti-government uprising, resulting in the deaths of between 10,000 and 20,000 people
9:53
Today, Peace Memorial Park stands as a reminder of this incident. At the same time, on the mainland, the ROC was engaged in a civil war with the Communist
10:06
People's Liberation Army led by Mao Zedong. The KMT at the time, led by Chiang Kai-shek
10:12
was mostly defeated, but they hatched an escape plan and they retreated to Taiwan
10:17
taking a million people along with them and boatloads of weapons, gold and historical
10:22
artifacts. The ROC instituted a period of martial law where the country would basically be run by
10:27
the military and this lasted for 38 years. The retreat of the KMT and the influx of refugees
10:43
from the mainland sparked a new period of rapid expansion. There was a serious lack of housing
10:49
on Taiwan and the government wasn able to meet demand This resulted in a surge of unregulated construction wherever there was space available This is why you find seemingly orderly city grids cut into a web of side streets and alleyways as people scrambled to
11:03
make the best of what they had at the time. These were once a hallmark of economic hardship, but today these alleyways host some of Taiwan's best
11:10
cafes, restaurants, museums and markets. Chiang Kai-shek's government and the KMT came from the north of China, whereas the
11:18
original Chinese settlers to Taiwan came from the south and this is very evident
11:22
when you look at Taiwan city gates. So eventually the Kuomintang remodeled
11:26
three of the four remaining city gates into a more ornate northern Beijing style
11:32
to show off their ideology and also their heritage but this gate the northern
11:37
gate retained its original Fujian province style and you can see compared
11:40
to the other ones it's quite simple but it's still very beautiful. Between the years of 1965 and 1986, Taiwan saw its own economic miracle
11:52
It was during this period that Premier Sun Yun Shan commissioned Taipei's world-class metro to be built
11:57
This revitalized many of the outlying Taipei areas that previously did not have good access to the center of the city
12:03
By this time, the city had swallowed up most of the other cities in the surrounding area
12:14
By the start of the 1980s, while under pressure from numerous activist groups, the KMT actually
12:26
started reversing some of its hard authoritarian policies. In 1987, martial law was ended
12:32
And in 1996, the country had its first fully-fledged democratic elections. now we're at liberty square this square was built after the death of chankajek
12:46
to commemorate his life at the end there you have chankajek memorial hall it's extremely grand and
12:52
beautiful since the 80s this square has played host to numerous pro-democracy protests including
12:59
the wild lily student protest in which students sat here for six days and because of this legacy
13:04
the square has now been renamed Liberty Square. Since the birth of Taiwanese democracy
13:14
Taipei has become a world leader in tech and sustainability. Safety and convenience have become the hallmarks of Taipei living
13:25
For the traveler, navigating the city is an absolute breeze. Grand skylines, bustling night markets
13:31
ornate temples and towering mountains are all within reach of the metro, bus or even a futuristic
13:37
high-speed rail. The people are kind, the food is delicious and best of all you can finally get a
13:45
tourist visa again. Thank you so much to the Taiwan Tourism Office in London for helping us out with
13:53
this video and thank you for watching this video. If you're interested in learning more about anything
13:57
I spoke about in this video I am going to be leaving some links for further reading
14:02
in the description and if you made it this far here's your reward
14:06
this montage of dogs my wife filmed while we were walking around Taipei
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