Hsinchu East

East District (東區) is the most populous district in Hsinchu City and the largest outside Taiwan’s six special municipalities, its daytime population swelling further due to the Hsinchu Science Park. The old walled city of Zhúqiàn (竹塹城) once stood here; its East Gate, built in 1826, survives as a national monument at the center of a broad traffic circle. The Hsinchu Railway Station, completed in 1913, is among the best-preserved Japanese colonial era stations in Taiwan. Another relic of that era is the IJN No. 6 Fuel Factory, a World War 2 facility bombed by allied forces that later became a military dependents’ village, its residents living inside the roofless factory shells until the 2010s.