Central Taiwan historical timeline

Central Taiwan’s history is shaped by its mountains, which kept it beyond outside control for far longer than the coasts.

Indigenous highlands

The Bunun, Tsou, Atayal and Thao held the interior for thousands of years. Qing administration extended only over the plains, and the mountains were formally designated off-limits to Han settlement for much of that period — a boundary marked by a line of earthworks and guard posts.

Lukang

In the eighteenth century Lukang was the second city of Taiwan and the main port for trade with Fujian, wealthy enough to build guild halls and the Lukang Longshan Temple that still stands. Silting closed the harbour in the nineteenth century, the trade moved, and the town was preserved by its own decline.

Japanese development

The Japanese administration after 1895 pushed into the mountains in a way the Qing never had, with military campaigns against indigenous communities that culminated in the Wushe Incident of 1930, a Seediq uprising suppressed with great violence. They also built the Alishan forest railway to extract cypress and cedar, and dammed Sun Moon Lake for hydroelectricity, which powered the island’s early industry.

After 1945

Land reform in the 1950s redistributed the western plain, and Taichung grew as an industrial and later a service city. The forestry industry wound down and Alishan turned to tourism.

Chi-Chi

The earthquake of 21 September 1999 was the defining recent event: over 2,400 dead, tens of thousands of buildings destroyed, and a reconstruction that drove major changes to building codes across Taiwan.