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Hsinchu is a coastal city in north-western Taiwan on the Taiwan Strait, and with about 476,000 people it is the most populous city in the country that is not a special municipality. It is nicknamed the Windy City for the strong north-east monsoon that blows through it in autumn and winter.
Known to Hokkien and Hakka settlers as Tek-kham, or Zhuqian, the town was founded by Han Chinese colonists in 1711 and renamed Hsinchu in 1878. A brick city wall with four gates was built in 1827, and under Japanese rule the city, called Shinchiku, became the seat of a large prefecture. In 1980 the government opened the Hsinchu Science Park, now home to TSMC, MediaTek and UMC.
Visitors walk from the City God Temple of 1748 and its food stalls to the old East Gate and the moat, see the Japanese-era station, prefecture hall and theatre, and visit Taiwan's oldest zoo in Hsinchu Park. West of the centre a cycle path follows 17 kilometres of coast past the fishing port to the Xiangshan Wetland.
Hsinchu City God Temple was founded in 1748 as an official temple on land given by the pioneer Wang Shi-jie, and it is now a city monument. It was rebuilt over three years from 1924, and the green Quanzhou stone lions at its door appeared on Taiwanese stamps in 1993. Snack stalls fill its square.
Ying Xi Gate, the East Gate of old Hsinchu, is the only survivor of the four gates of the brick city wall begun in 1827, since the Japanese pulled the rest down in 1902. Its stone base, about 6 metres high, bears the words Ying Xi, Greeting the Dawn, and the gate is a national monument.
Hsinchu Changhe Temple on Beimen Street was founded in 1742 on land given by the Wang family, and its Mazu shrine became the meeting place of merchant guilds trading with mainland China. Known as the Outer Mazu, it has three halls in Quanzhou style and many old plaques from the Qing era.
The Zheng Family Ancestral Shrine on Beimen Street in Hsinchu was built in 1854 by the family of Zheng Yong-xi, remembered as the first Jinshi scholar of Taiwan. A city monument in southern Fujian style, it keeps carved plaques honouring family members who passed the imperial examinations.
Hsinchu Railway Station was finished in 1913 in a mix of Baroque and German Gothic styles, with a steep roof and thick red brick walls, and it is the oldest station building still in use in Taiwan. A national monument, it serves the West Coast line and the branch line to Neiwan.
Hsinchu Prefecture Hall was built from 1925 and opened in 1927 as the seat of Shinchiku Prefecture, a two-storey Western-style building of reinforced brick. Since 1989 it has housed the Hsinchu City Government, and after damage in the 1999 earthquake it was restored by 2005 as a national monument.
The Former Shinchiku Prefecture Library in Hsinchu opened in 1925, paid for to mark the visit of Crown Prince Hirohito, and stands near the East Gate and moat with a chrysanthemum crest and wings over its door. Saved from demolition after 1982, it is a city monument and reopened in 2020 with a cafe.
The Image Museum of Hsinchu City fills the Yule Theater of 1933, the first luxury cinema in Taiwan with air conditioning, with seats for 500. Bombed in 1944, it reopened as a busy movie house in 1946, stood idle from 1991 and was restored to open as a museum of cinema on 21 May 2000.
Hsinchu Park covers Pillow Hill, where Japanese troops set up guns to shell the walled town in 1895, and it opened in 1925 as the largest park in the city. Renewed in 2017 and 2018, it now holds the zoo, the Confucius Temple and Lichi Lake, crossed by a zigzag bridge where people feed the fish.
Hsinchu Zoo opened in 1936 inside Hsinchu Park and is the oldest zoo in Taiwan still on its original site, where its old gate, fountain and owl enclosure survive from that time. After a renewal from 2017 it reopened in December 2019 with more natural habitats for its animals.
The Hsinchu Confucius Temple was first built from 1817 to 1824 inside the walled city, a sign that the frontier town had grown into a centre of learning. It was moved to Hsinchu Park in 1958, where only its Dacheng Gate and Dacheng Hall keep their old form, and it is a listed historic building.
Zhulian Temple in Hsinchu, known locally as the Guanyin Pavilion, began as a small shrine built by the pioneer Wang Shi-jie around 1711 and moved to its present site in 1781. One of the three great temples of Hsinchu, it was restored from 2004 to 2011 and is known for its fine wood carvings.
Hsinchu Fishing Port, also called Nanliao Fishing Port, lies on the south side of the Touqian River mouth and was built in the 1950s after the old port of Zhuqian silted up. It is a major deep-sea fishing port on the west coast of Taiwan and the starting point of the coastal cycle path.
The 17 km Coastline Bikeway in Hsinchu runs for about 17 kilometres from Nanliao Fishing Port south to the Xiangshan Wetland. Cyclists and walkers pass Nanliao beach, seaside viewing areas and the bird watching spot at Jincheng Lake, crossing several cycle bridges over rivers and creeks.
Xiangshan Wetland stretches about 15 kilometres along the southern coast of Hsinchu and covers some 1,700 hectares, protected in 2001 after a long fight against plans to fill it in. It is the largest oyster farm in northern Taiwan, rich in fiddler crabs, and a stop for migrating birds.
Shibajianshan, the Eighteen Peaks Mountain on the edge of Hsinchu, rises only 131 metres and was laid out as a forest park in 1927. Closed for air raid tunnels in World War II and later held by the army, it is a city park again, with shady paths that pass 24 stone statues of Guanyin.
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