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Tainan
Special municipality and oldest city in Taiwan

Tainan

Tainan, officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast.

Plan a trip to Tainan→From Kaohsiung (Xiaogang)

Tainan is the oldest city on the island and commonly called the "prefectural capital" for its 263-year history as the capital of Taiwan under Dutch rule, the Kingdom of Tungning and later Qing dynasty rule until 1887. Tainan's complex history of comebacks, redefinitions and renewals inspired its popular nickname "the Phoenix City". Tainan was classified as a "Sufficiency"-level global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network in 2020, but was not classified in 2022 and 2024.

Get in

Getting to Tainan

For flight options beyond the Taiwan Strait, the closest international airport is in Kaohsiung. From there you can take a train, bus, taxi, or rental car for a 45-minute to one-hour journey to Tainan. Flying into Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is also another choice, and you don't have to go into Taipei proper and can just take the HSR train (1½ hours and NT$1350) from Taoyuan.

  1. 01
    Tainan Airport

    This airport has largely diminished in traffic after the high-speed rail was built, but Uni Air has daily flights to the outlying islands of Kinmen (50 min) and Penghu (30 min).

  2. 02
    Tainan TR Station

    Trains from Taipei can take 3½-6 hours depending on the type of the train.

  3. 03
    Tainan Bus Station
See

Worth seeing

At first glimpse, Tainan may seem all gray buildings with an alarming number of scooters, but thankfully it doesn't take long to discover its charms. Historical buildings and temples are mostly found in three main clusters: near Chihkan Tower and on Zhongzheng Road, which used to be within old city walls during the Qing Dynasty, and in Anping District.

  1. 01
    Anping Tree House
  2. 02
    Chihkan Tower
  3. 03
    Eternal Golden Fortress
  4. 04
    Anping Fort

    In the early 17th century, European seafarers came to Asia to trade and develop colonial outposts.

  5. 05
    National Cheng Kung University
  6. 06
    Great South Gate

    One of Tainan’s most well preserved city gates.

Do

Things to do

  1. 01
    Tainan Park

    Beautiful park in a central part of the city.

  2. 02
    Uni-President Lions Baseball

    Baseball games in Taiwan are lively and light-hearted with a lot of chanting and cheering in unison.

  3. 03
    Sicao Lushe Tunnel
Eat

Where to eat

Tainan is often known as "the City of Snacks" (小吃城). In addition to the wide variety of food available at night markets, the city also has an abundance of street vendors specializing in tasty and cheap dishes. Oysters in particular, are favored in Tainan, from the long association with Anping port.

  1. 01
    Garden Night Market

    The biggest and most famous open-air night market, there are tons of food stalls and game booths set up in a gigantic parking lot.

  2. 02
    Da Dong Night Market

    Very popular among the local university students, especially on Friday nights.

  3. 03
    Wu Sheng Night Market
  4. 04
    Du Hsiao Yueh

    A famous purveyor of dan zai mian (擔仔麵), also known as peddlers' noodles because it was made to be sold by fishermen on the roadside.

  5. 05
    A Xia Restaurant

    7, Lane 84, Section 2, Zhongyi Road, West Central District.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (CC BY-SA 3.0), Wikimedia Commons.