Yoshii Department Store

Founded in 1938 by Yoshii Chōhei (吉井長平) of Shiga Prefecture, this former five-storey building was the first modern department store in Kaohsiung. Together with Taipei’s Kikumoto Department Store and Hayashi Department Store in Tainan, it was regarded as one of the three great department stores of Japanese colonial era Taiwan. It as also home to a rooftop Kotohira Shinto shrine (樓頂金比羅神社) dedicated to maritime safety. The department store survived Allied bombing and in the post-war era reopened as Kaohsiung Department Store (高雄百貨). The building was demolished in 1994 and the site is now occupied by the Kaohsiung branch of Huanan Commercial Bank (華南銀行高雄分行).