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Chiayi is a city of about 263,000 people in south-western Taiwan, surrounded by Chiayi County and one of the closest Taiwanese cities to the Tropic of Cancer. It is the starting point of the Alishan Forest Railway, built under Japanese rule to carry cypress and Taiwania timber down from the mountains.
The Hoanya people knew the area as Tirosen, which became Zhuluo under the Qing. The county seat moved here in 1704, and the walled town was nicknamed Peach City for its shape. After the Lin Shuang-wen rebellion the Qianlong Emperor renamed it Chiayi in 1787. Under Japan it was called Kagi, and a strong earthquake in 1906 destroyed much of the town.
Today visitors walk from the City God Temple and the old prison to the lumber-era houses of Hinoki Village and Beimen Station, climb the Sun-Shooting Tower in Chiayi Park and eat the city's famous turkey rice. Old industrial sites such as the former brewery and tobacco office now house a creative park and the city's art museum.
Chiayi City God Temple was first built in 1716 by the Zhuluo county magistrate Zhou Zhong-xuan as the county's first official City God temple, and it is one of the three great old temples of the walled town. Rebuilt by the Quanzhou master Wang Jin-mu and completed in 1940, it is a national monument.
Chiayi Old Prison, opened in 1922 in the east of Chiayi, is the only Japanese-era prison in Taiwan preserved complete. Its cell blocks radiate out from a central guard hall, and after the prisoners moved out in 1994 it became a national monument in 2005 and opened to visitors in 2011.
Chiayi Railway Station has been joined to the Alishan Forest Railway since 1912, and its present building was rebuilt in 1933 to a design by Ushiki Takeo. It was once Taiwan's first station shared by three railways, and it is still the only first-class station in the Chiayi area.
Wenhua Road Night Market fills about 400 to 500 metres of Wenhua Road in central Chiayi, running south from the Central Fountain Square. By day the road carries two lanes of traffic, but from 7 to 11 each evening it becomes a pedestrian zone packed with food stalls and local snacks.
Beimen Station in Chiayi is a small wooden station of the Alishan Forest Railway, completed in 1912 at the eastern edge of a large timber district with a log pond, sawmills and a railway repair works. A city monument since 1998, the old station was restored from 2023; trains use a newer building.
Hinoki Village in Chiayi is Taiwan's first forest-themed culture park, made up of 29 Japanese-era timber houses built from 1914 to 1943 for the staff of the forestry office, together with the old Forestry Club. Restored by 2013, the 3.4-hectare quarter now holds shops, cafes and exhibitions.
The Alishan Forest Railway runs from Chiayi Station into the mountains as an 86-kilometre network of narrow-gauge lines built under Japanese rule to carry cypress and Taiwania timber. Famous for its Z-shaped switchbacks, over 50 tunnels and 77 wooden bridges, it is a potential World Heritage Site.
Chiayi Municipal Museum opened on 9 March 2004 behind the city's cultural centre, with halls on geology, fossils and fine art, including a memorial area for the Chiayi painter Chen Cheng-po. After more than two years of renovation it reopened on 23 January 2021 with refreshed displays.
Chiayi Park, formerly called Zhongshan Park, is a large park on the eastern side of Chiayi laid out in the Japanese era, with old trees, ponds and waterside paths. It holds the Sun-Shooting Tower, the Confucian Temple, relics of the Shinto shrine and the No. 21 Shay steam engine of the Alishan line.
The Sun-Shooting Tower in Chiayi Park was built in 1998 on the site of the shrine halls that burned in 1994. The 62-metre tower has a skin of brown aluminium strips imitating the bark of the sacred tree of Alishan, with a 40-metre open slot through its middle like the tree's split trunk.
Chiayi Historical Relics Museum occupies the purification hall and shrine office of the Chiayi Shinto Shrine, founded in 1915 in what is now Chiayi Park. These buildings survived when the main halls burned in 1994, became a city monument in 1998 and opened in 2001 as a museum with eight areas.
Chiayi Confucian Temple stands in Chiayi Park, successor to a temple first built in 1706 at the west gate of the walled town. After the 1906 earthquake destroyed the old temple, its tablet moved to another shrine, and the new temple, approved for the park in 1961, was completed in 1964.
Chiayi Art Museum opened in 2020 in the former Chiayi branch of the government tobacco and wine monopoly. Its main block, a three-storey modern building of 1936 designed by Umezawa Sutejiro, is joined by a wine warehouse of 1954 and a tobacco and wine warehouse of 1980, all converted to galleries.
Chiayi Cultural and Creative Industries Park occupies the former Chiayi Brewery, opened in 1916 and later known as the Old Distillery, in the city's West District. It worked until 1999, when the Jiji earthquake cut its 53-metre chimney to 18 metres, and opened as a creative park in 2003.
Lantan Lake, a reservoir in the east of Chiayi once called the Red-haired Pond, is said to be where the Dutch trained their navy some 300 years ago. The present reservoir was built from 1942 to 1944 for the city and a chemical works, and the moon over the lake is one of the eight views of Chiayi.
Chiayi Turkey Rice began, local elders say, after World War II, when American troops stationed in Chiayi brought turkeys that farmers around the city then bred in large numbers. Shredded turkey is laid on white rice and dressed with a rich broth and lard fried with shallots.
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