Keelung Taifei No. 2 Factory

Founded in 1920 as the Taiwan Fertilizer Company (臺灣肥料株式會社) and known to locals as the “guano company” (鳥糞會社), this was Taiwan’s first chemical fertilizer plant, producing superphosphate (過磷酸鈣) from imported phosphate rock and sulfuric acid on the banks of the Tianliaogang Canal (田寮港運河), which carried its materials by barge. After the war it became the No. 2 Factory of the state-run Taiwan Fertilizer Company, sister to the No. 1 Factory in the hills across the harbour. Notorious for the acrid fumes that drew repeated complaints from nearby residents, the plant closed in 1983 and its site was cleared in the late 2000s to become the Liuhe Parking Lot (六合停車場).