Anping Old Street

A street of souvenir shops and snack stalls in the old core of Anping, Tainan, formally known as Yanping Street (延平街) and promoted as the “First Street in Taiwan” (臺灣第一街). A market street had formed here before the Dutch arrived in 1624, as Ming and Japanese smugglers traded with European merchants and the Indigenous Siraya, and it reached its commercial peak in the late Qing dynasty. A plan to widen the 3 meter lane set off the Yanping Street Incident (延平街事件) in 1994, a dispute between preservationists and residents that drew national attention, until residents tore down most of the old shophouses themselves in 1995.