Zhongshan, Keelung

Zhōngshān (中山區) forms much of northern and western Keelung, including many historic areas in the outer port. The district holds most of the harbour’s working infrastructure along with the railway terminus. Coastal defense concentrated on the headland at the western entrance, where Baimiweng Fort (白米甕砲台), completed in 1902, mounted four Armstrong guns alongside the batteries at Mushan and Wanrentou.

Two lighthouses mark successive eras of harbour administration: Keelung Lighthouse (基隆燈塔) of 1900, the first brick lighthouse completed under Japanese rule and fitted with a fog cannon against the region’s notoriously poor weather, and Qiuzishan Lighthouse (球子山燈塔) of 1956, the first designed and built by the Republic of China.

Heavy industry was sited on the western shore, most substantially the electrochemical works of 1935 that became Taiwan Fertilizer’s No. 1 Factory (台肥基隆一廠). Behind the wharves the cliffs at Xiandong shelter the cave temple of Xiandongyan (仙洞巖) and the adjacent Buddha’s Hand Cave (佛手洞), while the slopes above carry dense hillside settlement reached by stairways and, around the bend of the harbour at Huzishan, a corkscrew road tunnel (虎仔山迴車塔).