Tamsui District

Tamsui is a sea-side district in New Taipei City in northern Taiwan. It is named after the Tamsui River; the name means "fresh water". The town is popular as a site for viewing the sun setting into the Taiwan Strait. Though modest in size (population 162,441), the district is home to three universities (Aletheia University, Tamkang University, and St. John's University) and has a large role in Taiwanese culture.

Names

Historical

Originally settled by the Ketagalan aborigines, the location was called Hoba, meaning "stream's mouth". Hoba was loaned into Taiwanese as Hō͘-bé (滬尾), and historical works in English have referred to the place as "Hobe", "Hobé", or "Hobe Village". The Spanish arrived in the 17th century and called this place Casidor and the Tamsui River Kimalon. Dutch records have used the placenames Tamsuy and Tampsui to refer to this area, but have also referred to another "Lower Tamsuy" in the south of the island.

In his 1903 book The Island of Formosa, former US diplomat James W. Davidson related that the spelling and pronunciation of the placename 淡水 has been given in many variants by "as many so-called authorities. Tamsui, Tamshuy, Tamshui, Tamsoui, Tan-sui,...". The first variant "Tamsui" is consistent with the literary Hokkien reading, and (possibly by chance) is equal to its Church Romanization (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tām-súi) minus tone markings and hyphen. The variant "Tan-sui", with exception of the hyphen, is consistent with the romanization of Japanese. However, the first variant was apparently already well-known circa 1900, and features prominently in two English-language maps of the same era. Furthermore, at that time, the term "Tamsui" was used "in a most liberal way; it may mean the harbor, the river, the village of Hobe, Twatutia, or Banka, and it may mean the whole district."

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.

Hispaniola

Hispaniola (Spanish: La Española; Latin: Hispaniola; Taíno: Haiti) is the 22nd-largest island in the world, located in the Caribbean island group, the Greater Antilles. It is the second largest island in the Caribbean after Cuba, and the tenth most populous island in the world.

Two sovereign nations share the 76,192 square kilometres (29,418 sq mi) island. The Dominican Republic with 48,445 square kilometres (18,705 sq mi) is nearly twice as large as its neighbor, Haiti, which contains 27,750 square kilometres (10,710 sq mi). The only other shared island in the Caribbean is Saint Martin, shared between France (Saint-Martin) and the Netherlands (Sint Maarten).

It is the site of the first European settlement in the Americas founded by Christopher Columbus on his voyages in 1492 and 1493.

History

Etymology

The island was called by various names by its native people, the Taíno Amerindians. When Columbus took possession of the island in 1492, he named it Insula Hispana, meaning "the Spanish Island" in Latin and La Isla Española, meaning "the Spanish Island", in Spanish.Bartolomé de las Casas shortened the name to "Española", and when Pietro Martyr d‘Anghiera detailed his account of the island in Latin, he rendered its name as Hispaniola.

Fort San Domingo

The Fort San Domingo (Chinese: 聖多明哥城, Chinese name "紅毛城") was originally a wooden fort built by the Spanish in 1629 at Tamsui District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. It is located near Hobe Fort, which was built during Qing rule.

History

Spanish Era

After the Spanish established a permanent colony at San Salvador (Palm Island; modern-day Hoping Island), they proceeded in 1629 to occupy Tamsui, "which even at this early period was frequented by many Chinese merchants, who came from Fokien to barter with the Formosa natives." On a night in 1636, a group of local people, angered by the taxes that the Spanish governor had imposed, successfully attacked the fort and demolished it. In 1637, the Spanish rebuilt the fort using stone and raised the walls' height to twenty feet or more. A church was also built on a hill, and the locals helped to make a road to it from the fort. "Peter Nuits the Dutch Governor of Formosa, reported these facts to his home authorities and exposed in an interesting report the injury that the Spaniards were doing to Dutch trade and the necessity of sending an expedition to drive them away."

Tamsui Old Street

Coordinates: 25°10′10.7″N 121°26′29.8″E / 25.169639°N 121.441611°E / 25.169639; 121.441611

The Tamsui Old Street (Chinese: 淡水老街; pinyin: Dànshuǐ Lǎojiē) is a street in Tamsui District, New Taipei, Taiwan.

Features

The street is filled with many shops which have been around for decades.

Transportation

The street is accessible within walking distance north west from Tamsui Station of Taipei Metro.

See also

References