Kaohsiung

Related Topics:
Kaohsiung_City :: Kaohsiung :: Kaohsiung_County

This article is about the city. For the county, see Kaohsiung County.

Kaohsiung City (Traditional Chinese:高雄市, TongYong PinYin: GaoSyóng, Hanyu Pinyin: Gāoxióng, POJ: Ko-hiông; coordinates 22°38'N, 120°16'E) is the second largest city on Taiwan. ( population around 1,510,000 ) with eleven districts. Kaohsiung City is administered directly by the central government of the Republic of China.

Kaohsiung is a major center for manufacturing, refining, and transportation. 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 aluminium, wood and paper products, fertilizers, cement, metals, machinery, and ships. With its harbor one of the four largest in the world, Kaohsiung is the center of Taiwan's shipbuilding industry, as well as home to a large ROC Navy base. Its subway system, and the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit (KMRT), should be running in 2006.

Kaohsiung City will host the 2009 World Games, a multisport event primarily composed of sports not featured in the Olympic Games.

Subdivisions

Kaohsiung is divided into 11 administrative districts:

The Old City

Cijin (旗津區)
Gushan (鼓山區)
Yancheng (鹽埕區)
Zuoying (左營區)

Downtown

Sinsing (新興區)
Cianjin (前金區)
Lingya (苓雅區)

Other

Sanmin (三民區)
Nanzih (楠梓區)
Cianjhen (前鎮區)
Siaogang (小港區)

Two islands in the South China Sea are administered by Kaohsiung City and constitute part of Cijin District:

Taiping (island) (太平島)
Dongsha Islands or Pratas Islands (東沙群島)

Geography

Kaohsiung is located south of the Tropic of Cancer, the climate is tropical with average temperatures ranging from between 18.6 and 28.7 degrees Celsius, and average humidity between 60 and 81%. Average annual rainfall is 1134 mm.

The city sits on the southwestern coast of Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait. The downtown areas are centered around Kaohsiung Harbor with the island of Chijin on the other side of the harbor acting as a natural breakwater. The Ai (Love) River flows into the harbor through the Old City and downtown. Zuoying Harbor lies to the north of Kaohsiung Harbor and the city center. Kaohsiung's natural landmarks include the coral mountains Shoushan and Banpingshan.

History

Founded near the end of the Ming Dynasty, the city grew up from a small village called in the 17th century Táⁿ-káu (打狗) in the Holo language spoken by most of the early immigrants (pronounced "Dagou" in Standard Mandarin). The name originates from Makatao, the name of a local tribe and meaning "bamboo forest" in the local tribe's language. The Dutch established Fort Zeelandia in 1624, defeated local tribes around here in 1635, but were expelled by Koxinga in 1662. Under Zheng Jing's (son of Koxinga) control the area was named Wan-nien-chow in 1664. Following a further name change to Táⁿ-káu in the late 1670s, the town grew dramatically with immigrants from mainland China. In 1684 the Qing conquered Taiwan and renamed the town Fengshan County (鳳山縣), considering it a part of Taiwan Prefecture. It 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 was changed from 打狗 (pronounced Táⁿ-káu in Taiwanese) to 高雄 (Kanji read as Takao in Japanese). While the sound remained more or less the same, the literal meaning of the name changed from "Beating Dog" to "High Hero". The Japanese developed Takao, especially the harbour. An important military base and industry center, the city was heavily bombed by Task Force 38 and FEAF during 1944-1945.

After control of Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China in 1945, the official romanization of the city name came to be "Kao-hsiung", based on the Wade-Giles romanization of the Standard Mandarin reading of the Japanese Kanji. Kaohsiung was upgraded to a 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.

Politics

As the second largest city in Taiwan, the office of Mayor of Kaohsiung is viewed as a presitgious position, often at times seen as a counterweight to the Mayor of Taipei.

Kaohsiung is sometimes seen as the political mirror image of Taipei. While northern Taiwan leans towards the pan-blue coalition, southern Taiwan has traditionally leaned towards the pan-green coalition and Kaohsiung is no exception. Frank Hsieh of the DPP was reelected twice as Mayor of Kaohsiung, where he was widely credited with transforming the city from an industrial sprawl to an attractive modern metropolis. Hsieh resigned the office of mayor to take up the office of Premier of the Republic of China in 2005.

Transportation

Also known as the "Harbor Capital" of Taiwan, Kaohsiung has always had a strong link with the ocean and maritime transportation. Ferries play a key role in everyday transportation, and often play the role that buses do in other cities, especially for transportation crossing the harbor. The Port of Kaohsiung is also Taiwan's largest container port, and is one of the largest in the world by some measurements, ranking 6th in the world in terms of container throughput. However, Port of Kaohsiung is not officially a part of Kaohsiung City, instead it is administrated by the Port Authority of the Central Government. There is a push for Kaohsiung City to annex Port of Kaohsiung in order to facilitate better regional planning.

Kaohsiung City is also home to Taiwan's second largest airport, the Kaohsiung International Airport, which is located in the Siaogang District in southern Kaohsiung City.

A new metro system, the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit System is currently under construction; it expects to be open at the end of 2007. A light rail route that circles central Kaohsiung City will also be constructed when funding becomes available. In 2004, Kaohsiung City Government, joining with Siemens AG, built a two-station circle route in Central Park in order to demonstrate the feasibility of building a light rail system in Kaohsiung City and alleviate some residents' concerns of light rail's negative impacts such as noise and traffic.

The city is served by the Taiwan Railway Administration's Western Line and Pingtung Line. Initially, Taiwan High Speed Rail will serve Kaohsiung City via its new Zuoying Station in northern Kaohsiung City when it opens in 2006. Taiwan High Speed Rail will later extend its southern terminus to the new Kaohsiung Station in central Kaohsiung City when funding becomes available. Both the new Zuoying Station and new Kaohsiung Station will be replacements of the old stations at roughly the same sites and they will be joint stations of the "Three Rails": Kaohsiung Rapid Transit, Taiwan Railway Administration, and Taiwan High Speed Rail. Additionally, the light rail route will serve the new Kaohsiung Station.

References

External links

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