China Taiwan

Kaohsiung Wikipedia

Kaohsiung City
高雄市

Image:Kaohsiung_City_flag.png|100px Image:Kaohsiung_City_seal.png|100px City flag City logo
Abbreviation: Kaohsiung (高雄)
City nickname: The Harbor City
Capital District	Linya Dist. (苓雅區)
Region	Southern Taiwan
Mayor	Chen Chi-Mai (陳其邁, acting)
Area	List of Taiwanese counties and cities by area|Ranked 19 of 25
- Total - % water	153.5927 1 E9 m2|km² ?%
Population	List of Taiwanese counties and cities by population|Ranked 5 of 25
- Total (Mayl 2004) - Density	1,510,441 9833/km²
District|Districts:	11
City flower:	cotton plant|tree cotton (Bombax ceiba)
City tree:	--
City bird:	--
Image:Kaohsiung_location.jpg

Image:Ddm 2004 027 Kaohsiung Harbor.jpg|right|290px|thumb|Kaohsiung Harbor/ Canon EOS 300D/ EF18-55mm lens/ ISO 100-200/ taken by DDM Xiao/ 16 September, 2004
Kaohsiung (Chinese language|Chinese:高雄, TongYong PinYin: GaoSy?ng, Hanyu Pinyin: Gāoxióng, Taiwanese POJ: Ko-hi?ng) is the second largest city in Taiwan (population around 1.45m) with eleven districts. Kaohsiung can refer to either the Kaohsiung City, which is administered directly by the central government of the Republic of China, or Kaohsiung County, which is administered as part of Taiwan Province.

Unlike Taipei, the streets of Kaohsiung are wide and traffic is less congested than in Taipei. However, the air pollution around Kaohsiung is notoriously bad because of the heavy industry in the area. Kaohsiung is the major port through which most of Taiwan's oil is imported, which accounts for the large amount of heavy industry.

It is an export processing zone - producing aluminum, wood and paper products, fertilizers, cement, metals, machinery and ships. Its metro|subway system, the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit|Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit (KMRT), should be running in 2006.

The city grew up from a small village called in the 17th century T?ⁿ-k?u (打狗), which was the name of a Taiwanese aborigine|local tribe or "bamboo forest" in the local tribe's language. The Netherlands|Dutch established a fort there in 1624 but were expelled by the history of China|Chinese in 1661. Under Chinese control the area was named Wan-nien-chow in 1664. Following a further name change to Takao in the late 1670s the town grew dramatically with immigrants from mainland China. In 1684 Kaohsiung was renamed Fengshan County (鳳山縣), and considered a part of Taiwan Prefecture. Kaohsiung was first opened as a port during the 1680s.

In 1895 Taiwan was ceded to Japan as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. It was during this period that the city's name changed from 打狗 (pronounced T?-k?u in Taiwanese) to 高雄 (Takao in Japanese language|Japanese). While the sound remained more or less the same, the old character meaning of "Beating Dog" was replaced with the more elegant-sounding "High Hero". The new characters eventually came to be pronounced "Kao-hsiung" in Mandarin Chinese.

The Japanese developed Kaohsiung, especially the harbour. Kaohsiung was upgraded to a municipality (China)|municipality on July 1, 1979, by the Executive Yuan, which approved this proposal on November 19, 1978. The famous-in-hindsight Kaohsiung Incident of December 1979 occurred in the city.

The Old City - Cijin, Gushan, Yancheng, Zuoying.

Downtown - Sinsing, Cianjin and Lingya.

Sanmin, Nanzih, Cianjhen and Siaogang.

See also Political divisions of the Republic of China

Last Modified:   2005-04-13