Zhongzheng, Keelung

Zhōngzhèng District (中正區), which includes Hépíng Island (和平島) and Badouzi (八斗子), sprawls along the northeastern shoreline of Keelung. Ringed by sea on three sides, it is the seat of the city government and the center of its fishing industry. Its jurisdiction reaches far offshore to Keelung Islet and three northern islets, the outermost of which carries the Pengjia Islet Lighthouse (彭佳嶼燈塔).

Heping Island holds the oldest layer of colonial settlement in northern Taiwan: the Spanish built Fort San Salvador (聖薩爾瓦多城) here around 1626, and excavation beneath a shipyard car park has since uncovered the Church of All Saints (諸聖教堂), the first Dominican mission in Taiwan.

The eastern shore of the harbour was fortified and refortified over the centuries that followed, from the lowland battery at Dashawan (大沙灣), silenced by French warships in August 1884, to Ershawan Fort (二沙灣砲臺) rebuilt on the heights above; the French dead of that campaign lie in a cemetery nearby.

Fishing built the modern district, leaving the 1935 Fishermen’s Association Building (漁會正濱大樓) at Zhengbin Fishing Port (正濱漁港) and, across the Bachimen Channel, the ruins of Agenna Shipyard (阿根納造船廠). On Shitoushan (獅頭山) the Zhupu Altar (主普壇) hosts the central rite of the Keelung Ghost Festival in the seventh lunar month.