Ruifang

Ruìfāng (瑞芳) is the most significant mining district in New Taipei, its verdant mountains scarred by both coal and gold extraction during the Japanese colonial era. Hòutòng (猴硐) once produced a seventh of Taiwan’s coal; the Houtong Shrine survives from that era, though the village is now better known for its many stray cats. Gold and copper mining operations centered on the the coastal Shuǐjīnjiǔ region, which includes Shuǐnándòng (水湳洞), Jīnguāshí (金瓜石), and Jiǔfèn (九份), three settlements whose heritage sites are now on Taiwan’s tentative UNESCO World Heritage list.

The immense Shuinandong Smelter, a thirteen-tiered ore facility built into the coastal hillside, is the district’s most iconic ruin. The Jinguashi Shrine survives above the tourist-friendly Gold Museum, and the restored Shengping Theater anchors Jiufen’s winding old street. The Taiwan POW Memorial marks the wartime Kinkaseki camp where Allied prisoners were forced into copper mining. Jiufen’s revival owes much to the 1989 film A City of Sadness and later associations, however erroneous, with Spirited Away.