Tainan

Tainan (臺南 or 台南; literally "Taiwan South"), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait in the west and south. Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan and also commonly known as the "Capital City" (Chinese: 府城; pinyin: fǔchéng) for its over 200 years of history as the capital of Taiwan under Koxinga and later Qing dynasty rule. Tainan's complex history of comebacks, redefinitions and renewals inspired its popular nickname "the Phoenix City".

Tainan was initially established by the Dutch East India Company as a ruling and trading base called Fort Zeelandia during the period of Dutch rule on Taiwan. After Dutch colonists were defeated by Koxinga in 1661, Tainan remained as the capital of the Tungning Kingdom until 1683 and afterwards the capital of Taiwan Prefecture under the rule of Qing Dynasty until 1887, when the new provincial capital was moved to Taipei. Tainan has been historically regarded as one of the oldest cities in Taiwan, and its former name, Tayouan (大員), has been claimed to be the origin of the name "Taiwan". It is also one of Taiwan's cultural capitals, for its rich folk cultures including the famous local snack food, extensively preserved Taoist rites and other living local traditions covering everything from child birth to funerals. The city houses the first Confucian school–temple, built in 1665, the remains of the Eastern and Southern gates of the old city, and countless other historical monuments. Tainan claims more Buddhist and Taoist temples than any other city in Taiwan.

Taiwan

Coordinates: 23°30′N 121°00′E / 23.500°N 121.000°E / 23.500; 121.000

Taiwan (ⁱ/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a sovereign state in East Asia. The Republic of China, originally based in mainland China, now governs the island of Taiwan, which constitutes more than 99% of its territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands, following its loss of the mainland China territory in 1949 in the Chinese Civil War. This remaining area is also constitutionally called the "Free area of the Republic of China" which is not ruled by the Communist Party of China in Beijing.

Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west (mainland China), Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with a population density of 649 people per km² in October 2015.Taipei is the seat of the central government, and together with the surrounding cities of New Taipei and Keelung forms the largest metropolitan area on the island.

Night market

Night markets or night bazaars are street markets which operate at night and are generally dedicated to more leisurely strolling, shopping, and eating than more businesslike day markets. They are typically open-air markets.

Geographical spread

Some well-known night markets exist in Taiwan, but they also exist in many other areas inhabited by ethnic Chinese such as Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Thailand, Philippines and Chinatowns worldwide.

Taiwan

Taiwan hosts numerous night markets in each of its major cities. The larger and more formal of these markets might take place in purpose-built marketplaces while smaller or more informal ones tend to occupy streets or roads that are normal thoroughfares by day. The temporal night markets (ones that are not housed in any permanent structure) are actually consistent in their location; in most large cities, they are on a smaller street parallel and close (a block or two away) to the primary street of that city. Though the temporal night market stalls appear at night and then vanish by day, the vendors usually return to the same location the next evening. Night markets do not close, but the individual stalls may randomly take days off due to holidays, family illness, etc. Most temporal stalls within a night market have white canvas tops and bright lights. This gives the temporary night markets a fantastical, carnival-like atmosphere.

Treehouse (disambiguation)

A treehouse, tree house, or treefort is a habitable structure built in trees.

"Treehouse" may also refer to:

Education

Structures

Places

Entertainment

Anping District

Coordinates: 22°59′36.52″N 120°9′53.47″E / 22.9934778°N 120.1648528°E / 22.9934778; 120.1648528

Anping District (Chinese: 安平區; pinyin: ĀnpíngQū; Wade–Giles: An-p'ing Ch'ü; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: An-pêng-khu) is a district of Tainan City. In March 2012, it was named one of the Top 10 Small Tourist Towns by the Tourism Bureau of Taiwan.

Name Origin

The older placename derives from the ethnonym of a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, and was written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as Taiouwang, Tayowan, etc. In his translations of Dutch records, missionary William Campbell used the variant Tayouan and wrote that Taoan and Taiwan also occur. As Dutch spelling varied greatly at the time (see History of Dutch orthography), other variants may be seen. The name was also transliterated into Chinese characters variously as 臺窩灣, 大灣, 臺員, 大員, 大圓 and 梯窝灣.

After the Dutch were ousted ca. 1661 by Koxinga, Han immigrants renamed the area as "Anping", after the Anping Bridge in Quanzhou, Fujian. Soon after Qing rule of Taiwan was established in 1683, the name "Taiwan" (臺灣) was officially used to refer to the whole island with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture.