Magong

Magong (馬公) is the county seat of Penghu, occupying the western part of the main island along with the islets of Tongpan (桶盤) and Hujing (虎井). The city takes its name from Penghu Tianhou Temple, popularly known as Magong (媽宮) and generally regarded as the oldest Mazu temple in Taiwan; Japanese colonial authorities substituted the present characters in 1920. Under the Qing dynasty the harbour grew into a garrison and market town whose rotating troops left guild halls such as Tibiao Hall, and after the French occupation during the Sino-French War it was enclosed between 1887 and 1889 by Magong Old City, the last walled city the Qing built in Taiwan. Japan developed Magong as a naval port, and the Penghu First Guesthouse, completed in 1943, later became Chiang Kai-shek’s lodging on the islands. Magong also supported at least nine cinemas over the twentieth century, from Magong Hall, the first private cinema in Penghu, to the military’s Penghu Zhongzheng Hall; all have since closed.