Taiwan's harbour city reborn — where the Pier-2 Art District transformed derelict WWII-era warehouses into Taiwan's most vibrant street art and indie culture precinct, the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas' brilliant colours reflect in the Lotus Pond at dawn, the Love River promenade links night markets to rooftop bars, Cijin Island's tuna sashimi is the freshest in the country, and Kaohsiung's light rail runs alongside a working container port that handles 13 million containers per year
Kaohsiung (2.8 million; metro 2.9 million) is Taiwan's second city and the island's principal port — a working harbour city that has reinvented itself through the arts (Pier-2 Art District), tourism infrastructure (Love River bikeway, the Dome of Light metro station (the world's largest glass installation by a single artist), MRT), and night market culture that rivals Taipei's but with fresher seafood at half the price. The city's tropical climate (palm-tree-lined boulevards), its cuisine (tuna from the offshore fishing fleet, oyster vermicelli, tofu pudding shops), and its political characte…
The Siraya and Makatao peoples (Plains Aboriginals, Pingpu) inhabited the Kaohsiung area for thousands of years — the 'Takao' pronunciation (from which Kaohsiung/Gaosiong derives) comes from the Makatao language word for the indigenous village at the harbour. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) established a trading post at Takao in 1624 and controlled the area until the Ming loyalist Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) expelled the Dutch in 1662. The Japanese colonial administration (1895–1945) transformed Kaohsiung from a fishing harbour into a modern industrial port, building harbour infrastructure,…