Taichung

Taichung (台中) is the second-largest city in Taiwan, ousting Kaohsiung to claim the title in 2017. Centrally located in the eponymous Taichung Basin, it is a major industrial center and the gateway to popular attractions like Qingjing Farm and Sun Moon Lake in Nantou. Though Qing dynasty settlers established communities across the basin, notably Wufeng, seat of the influential Lin family, the city center was largely developed during the Japanese colonial era, which accounts for the grid street system and concentration of classical architecture in what is now Taichung City.

The coastal districts to the west include Dajia, famous for its annual Mazu pilgrimage. The 1935 Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake devastated much of the region, and the 921 Earthquake of 1999 struck again in the south, memorialized at the 921 Earthquake Museum in Wufeng. Heping, in the mountainous east, is Taichung’s sole Indigenous district, home to Tayal communities in the upper reaches of the Dajia River.