Kaohsiung
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A major port city in the south of Taiwan and well worth a stopover when touring the country. For the dark tourist there isn’t quite so much, but a couple of things have some significance. It’s also just a great city to visit for its waterfront location, swanky modernist architecture and astounding open-air art installations.
More background info: for general background see the separate chapter History of Taiwan.
Kaohsiung is often regarded as Taiwan’s “second city” after the capital Taipei (even though meanwhile Taichung has overtaken Kaohsiung in terms of population size). It has also been likened to other “second cities” such as Birmingham in Great Britain. And there are indeed some parallels. A few decades ago there was little reason for tourists to visit either, but that has in the meantime changed. Kaohsiung, like its British cousin, used to suffer from its industrial heritage, in the case of Taiwan this also meant really bad air quality.
Over the past decades, however, Kaohsiung has cleaned itself up noticeably and a host of new architectural delights have elevated it to almost rivalling Taipei. It still doesn’t have quite the glamour factor and richness of sights as the capital, but I certainly would agree that Kaohsiung is perhaps the second-most enjoyable city in Taiwan. In terms of its location by the sea, it beats Taipei hands down.
Kaohsiung is a fairly young city, owing most of its growth to the industrialization beginning in the 1950s. Originally it was just a set of small fishing and trading villages that later grew together, initially inhabited predominantly by the Siraya indigenous people, and the place was previously known as Takau or Takow. In the Japanese colonial era it became Takao. The characters representing this name are apparently pronounced in Mandarin as something like Kaohsiung, so this became the official name and transliteration after the takeover of Taiwan by the KMT as the ROC. Amongst the indigenous population it remains Takau. But nowadays few indigenous people still live in the city.
Kaohsiung’s harbour was already important in the 17th century, but these days it is massive. As Taiwan’s largest port it ships nearly 70% of all the country’s exports/imports. It was developed during the Japanese era, which also saw the advent of the railway in Taiwan. Towards the end of WWII Kaohsiung became the target of air raids that badly damaged the port. After the arrival of the KMT and Formosa becoming the ROC, the damage was repaired and the port developed further and eventually it overtook Keelung in the north as the country’s premier harbour.
In 1979 the city saw the political protests and turmoil that have collectively become known as the “Kaohsiung Incident”, which proved a key turning point in Taiwan’s younger history and was instrumental in paving the way towards the road to democracy in the 1980s and 90s.
Today Kaohsiung has a population of 2.78 million, just behind Taichung with its 2.85 million (both about the same as Taipei City alone, but far behind the greater Taipei Metropolitan Area with its over 7 million).
In addition to the harbour, Kaohsiung is also important as a steel-making and shipbuilding city and has an oil refinery as well as factories making paper, fertilizer, and consumables such as sugar. The harbour is also the main base of the ROC’s navy.
What there is to see: The main reason for Kaohsiung featuring on this website is the “War and Peace Memorial Park” on Cijin Island, which both have their own separate entries here.
Other than that there isn’t all that much of special interest from a dark-tourism perspective. One site that could qualify is the Kaohsiung Martyrs Shrine, another KMT glamorizing site. But since I had already seen the “mother” of all such sites in Taiwan, the National Revolutionary Martyrs Shrine in Taipei, I gave this Kaohsiung equivalent a miss.
A pretty unique sight of Kaohsiung is the huge painted and backlit glass dome inside Formosa Boulevard metro station, allegedly one of the world’s largest glass art installations (if not the largest). And this also has a few dark elements, in particular the section (partially hidden behind an elevator shaft) that depicts a car crash, complete with a car wreck and at least four dead bodies, one of whom is lying in a large pool of blood. Drastic! The rest of the installation is far less grim, but it’s certainly one thing any visitor to Kaohsiung should have seen! Near exit 9 is also a Human Rights Learning Studio with plenty of material (also in English) about Taiwan’s recent history, including the 1979 Kaohsiung Incident.
Location: in the south of Taiwan, nearly 200 miles (300 km) south of Taipei and ca. 55 miles (90 km) west of Taitung.
Google Maps locators:
Kaohsiung Martyrs Shrine: [22.6265, 120.2738]
Formosa Boulevard metro station: [22.6314, 120.3019]
Music Center: [22.6182, 120.2889]
Former British Consulate: [22.6189, 120.2669]
Lotus Pond: [22.6832, 120.2964]
Museum of Fine Arts: [22.6568, 120.2866]
Main TRA station: [22.6397, 120.3026]
HSR station: [22.6872, 120.3076]
International airport: [22.5718, 120.3406]
Access and costs: easy to get to by train, plane and road; not necessarily cheap.
Details: Kaohsiung is most easily reached by train. It’s the southern terminus of the High Speed Railway and the bullet trains from Taipei take a mere two hours to get here. However, the HSR station (called Zuoying) is way out in the north of the sprawling city, requiring an onward journey by metro or regular train. Unless you’re really pressed for time, I’d therefore recommend you take a regular TRA train and get off at Kaohsiung Main Station, which is much closer to the city centre.
Kaohsiung also has an International Airport, Taiwan’s second busiest (after Taipei’s Taoyuan Airport) and this may be an alternative for international flights into Taiwan, but it can’t really be justified for domestic flights given the excellent rail connections.
Getting around in Kaohsiung is made easy by an excellent metro network (3 lines) that is as simple to use and cheap as Taipei’s (especially if you use an EasyCard – see under Taiwan >practicalities). What the city also shares with Taipei is that it is much more pedestrian-friendly than other Taiwanese cities, with wide pavements and pedestrian crossings, many with traffic lights, at practically every corner.
As for accommodation, Kaohsiung has a wide range of options from budget-level to high-end. Some hotels offer grand views over the waterfront and harbour, for which a premium is charged. Perhaps the swishest hotel option is the Grand Hi-Lai. I decided to splash out on this one, and if you can do without harbour views it doesn’t actually cost an arm and a leg to stay here. Their breakfast buffet on the top floor is one of the best I’ve encountered anywhere in the world (though it still can’t quite beat the one at the Traders Hotel in Kuala Lumpur).
With regard to food & drink, Kaohsiung may not be quite able to compete with Taipei for the wide range of international cuisines, but you can still eat very well here. Cheap eats from hawker stalls or at night markets are also an option for the adventurous. As elsewhere in Taiwan there are convenience stores everywhere for those who choose to self-cater. The craft beer scene is not as elaborate as in Taipei, but you can still find decent brews in a few places including at the Port Warehouse No. 2 development.
Time required: I had two nights in Kaohsiung and found that sufficient for seeing the dark sites named above and for getting a decent feel for the city, but if you want to explore all it has to offer, and at a leisurely pace, you may need a day or two more.
Combinations with other dark destinations: see under Taiwan.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: Kaohsiung is primarily a non-dark destination. It’s delightfully arty, especially the western part of the waterfront features fabulous large-scale open-air art installations, including a huge one fashioned from repurposed red shipping containers (fitting for a port city). The spectacular architecture of the Music Center at the mouth of the Love River is also a work of art in itself. More clunky, but dominating the skyline is the 85 Sky Tower. The nearby Exhibition Center is closer to the ground but also a remarkable modern wavy structure.
While most of the city’s architecture is modern, there is also a fair share of shrines and temples – e.g. at the much-adored Lotus Pond in the north of the city. A Western relic is the former British Consulate (dating back to 1879) located at the foot of Mount Shou just north of the north-western end of Cijin Island.
Kaohsiung also boasts one of the largest collections of shopping centres and shopping streets as well as numerous night markets. In addition to the Music Center, cultural high points include the Museum of Fine Arts.
Those with a liking for all things railway-related as well as open-air art installations could head to the Hamasen Railway Cultural Park and the adjacent Takao Railway Museum.
See also under Taiwan in general.
