This year marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Tainan, Taiwan’s former capital on the south-western coast. In 1624, the Dutch East India Company established their presence on Taiwan (then Dutch Formosa) with a base in Anping, a leafy suburb of the present-day city. Tainan remained the capital for more than 200 years while the Dutch, the Spanish, a Chinese-Japanese pirate king called Koxinga and the Chinese battled it out for control of the island.
The Qing emperor emerged victorious in 1683, and in the late 19th century moved the capital to its present-day location in Taipei in an administrative shake-up; it was also prompted by the fact that the north had replaced the south in importance for trade.
When Japan ruled Taiwan from 1895 to 1945, it left enduring traces in the beautiful
