Puli

Pǔlǐ (埔里), formerly Pulishe (埔里社), sits in a basin surrounded by mountains near the geographic center of Taiwan. The basin was originally Tayal and Bunun territory; Plains Indigenous peoples from western Taiwan, namely the Pazeh (巴宰), Hoanya (洪安雅), Papora (拍瀑拉), and others, were invited to settle in 1823, while the ban on Han Chinese settlement was lifted in 1875. Puli developed into a regional hub for northeastern Nantou, with a sugar factory, a winery capitalizing on the basin’s renowned water quality, and a light railway connecting it to Shuili by 1911. With a population of roughly 76,000 it remains the largest town in the Nantou interior, serving Guoxing, Yuchi, and Ren’ai.