Xinyi, Keelung

Xinyi (信義區) is one of the seven administrative districts of Keelung in northern Taiwan. Located on the hilly east side of the harbour, it is home to several historic fortresses, former Shinto shrines, and Tianliaogang (田寮港), an old canal once used to transfer lumber to the Port of Keelung. A red light district opened on its banks in 1899, among the first in the colony, and the office (檢番) that regulated it still stands in a laneway. Barges along the same waterway supplied the Taiwan Fertilizer Company (臺灣肥料株式會社) plant that opened in 1920 as the island’s first chemical fertilizer works.

Inland the terrain rises toward Yueceng Mountain (月眉山) and the Shen’aokeng (深澳坑) valley, where mining operations worked the coal seams into the 1980s and left portals and ventilation shafts in the undergrowth. The heights carry several military fortifications, chief among them Gangziliao Fort (槓子寮砲臺), a national monument built between 1904 and 1908 to cover the eastern approaches to the port. On the same slopes sit Lingquan Monastery (靈泉禪寺), whose oldest hall and three stupas are designated heritage, and the remnants of Louyuan (陋園), the sprawling estate of the prestigious Keelung Yan family.