One Taiwan city I visited along the western coast was Tainan. The history of Tainan is a lot about the history of Taiwan. Small numbers of mainland Han Chinese lived in Taiwan migrating from the region in China adjacent to the island joining Taiwan’s indigenous tribes. And then came the Dutch in the exploration time of history, early to mid 1600’s. The Dutch offered incentives to the Chinese to work the land, oxen, seeds and tools and the Chinese flooded in. They brought modern methods of farming and finance. The Dutch built forts to defend the area. Rice and sugar was exported in great quantities, the economy grew and Tainan became the most well developed part of the island through the 18th century. It became Taiwan’s early capital city, moving it to Taipei in the late 1800’s
I think I said in an earlier blog it is also a city renowned all over Taiwan for its special food and desserts. Yup! I tried much of it. A few pictures of Tainan and to old port area of Anping:
