Tainan, Taiwan

Tainan, Taiwan


Tainan is a city in the southwestern part of Taiwan. It covers 2,191 sq km (846 sq mi) and has a population of 1,900,000 people (2011 estimate). The present Tainan City includes the former provincial city of Tainan and the surrounding Tainin County which were merged to form a single direct-controlled municipality in 2010.

Anping Fort, Tainan


The city of Tainan was founded by the Dutch East India Company as a trading port known as Fort Zeelandia. After the Dutch were ousted by Koxinga in 1661, Tainan became the capital of the Tungning Kingdom until 1683, when it continued as the capital of Taiwan Prefecture under the Qing Dynasty rule. In 1887, the prefectural capital was moved to Taipei.

Tainan is one of the oldest cities in Taiwan. The eastern and southern gates of the old city can still be seen today. The city is said to have more Buddhist and Taoist temples than any other cities in Taiwan. It is also the site of the first Confucian school-cum-temple established in 1665.

City Temple, Tainan

Going to Tainan

By Plane
Fly to Kaohsiung and then take land transport from there. The journey from Kaohsiung to Tainan takes about 45 minutes to an hour.

By Train
The high-speed train between Taipei and Kaohsiung stops at Tainan. The train journey takes 1 hour 45 minutes from Taipei. The train station is slightly outside downtown Tainan - you still need to take a taxi to reach the city center. The expected taxi fare is around NT$400.

Places of Interest in Tainan

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About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.