Taiwan History

I was in Wanhua not long ago. Standing in front of Longshan Temple, staring at the old streets, a question hit me: during the Qing dynasty, Taiwan’s administrative center was in Tainan. So why did it end up in Taipei? Most people would say it’s obvious — the north developed, the population grew, it just made sense to upgrade. But after reading the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles: Administrative Evolution, I realized this was anything but “natural.” ...

A Staggering Number How did Taiwanese people learn to live with earthquakes and typhoons? The Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles contains a set of numbers that might leave you speechless: Between 1909 and 1982, Taiwan recorded 17,564 felt earthquakes and 62,542 unfelt tremors. That’s an average of two felt earthquakes every three days. You read that right. On April 21, 1935, an earthquake killed 3,276 people. 12,053 were injured. 17,907 buildings were completely destroyed. ...

Introduction: The Rhythms of Data in the Blue Realm In the grand narrative of the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles, the ocean is not just a geographic boundary but the lifeblood of Taiwanese civilization. Through the archival lens of the Economy Chronicles: Fishery Affairs, we see not cold statistics, but an epic of migration, survival, and technological leaps. From the Ming and Qing fishermen fleeing taxes to the modern leap of 910,000 tons, these figures reveal how Taiwan transformed from a traditional fishery dependent on nature into a vital hub of the global maritime economy. ...

Introduction: The Misunderstood Database of ‘Miasma’ From the perspective of Digital Humanities, local chronicles are not just historical narratives but a ‘dynamic database’ of environmental and survival struggles. The Health Chronicles in the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles document the arduous journey from a “land of miasma” to a modern public health system. This is more than a medical history; it is an evolutionary tale of governance using “administrative power” to intercede in biological spaces. ...

Introduction: Place Names—The Tree Rings of History Place names are more than geographical coordinates; they are “historical products” created over centuries as societies evolve. From the perspective of Digital Humanities, toponymy serves as a vast database of proper nouns identifying the evolution of spatial dimensions. Through archival retrieval from the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles, we can clearly see how this land shifted from the “primeval call of Austronesian tongues” to a “multi-ethnic cultural palimpsest”. This post takes you into a 300-year naming laboratory to decode the cultural DNA behind these names. ...

Introduction: Place Names—The Tree Rings of History Place names are more than geographical coordinates; they are “historical products” created over centuries as societies evolve. From the perspective of Digital Humanities, toponymy serves as a vast database of proper nouns identifying the evolution of spatial dimensions. Through archival retrieval from the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles, we can clearly see how this land shifted from the “primeval call of Austronesian tongues” to a “multi-ethnic cultural palimpsest”. This post takes you into a 300-year naming laboratory to decode the cultural DNA behind these names. ...

Introduction: Local Chronicles as a Digital Goldmine In the age of digital information, traditional Chinese local chronicles are often dismissed as archaic “paper piles.” However, through the lens of Digital Humanities, the accounts of grain taxes, silver revenues, and administrative shifts in the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles reveal themselves as a sophisticated database of governance efficiency and resource allocation. This post deciphers historical data to reconstruct the fiscal breakthrough of late 19th-century Taiwan and its modern implications. ...