The best things to do in Tainan are Chihkan Tower and the two Yongfu Road temples beside it, the Dutch-built Anping Old Fort and the banyan-swallowed Tree House, the Confucius Temple, Hayashi Department Store, Shennong Street after dark and the Chimei Museum. Give it three days, start each one with beef soup, and plan evenings around which night market is trading.
Tainan was the seat of government for Taiwan for more than two centuries, until 1887, and it still holds the island's oldest forts, its first Confucian academy and a temple on almost every block. The old city is flat and compact, and it eats earlier and better than anywhere else in the country.
The Dutch built Fort Provintia here in 1653, and Koxinga made it his seat of government after taking the island in 1662. Little Dutch masonry survives under the two Qing-era pavilions on top. It stays open into the evening, when the lit roofs are the better view.
The Dutch East India Company began Fort Zeelandia in 1624, and the brick south wall of its outer fort is all that is left of their work. Koxinga took it in 1662 and renamed the place Anping. Climb the lookout tower for the view over the old harbour.
Tait & Co. built a trading house and warehouse here in 1867 for sugar and camphor. Abandoned, the warehouse was taken over by banyans whose roots now hold up its walls. One ticket covers the merchant house next door.
It was built in 1664 as the residence of the Ming Prince of Ningjing, and became a temple to the sea goddess Mazu in 1684, after the prince took his own life. It is a national monument and still a busy working temple.
Built in 1665, it was Taiwan's first Confucius temple and its first school, which is why the gate reads First Academy of Taiwan. The outer grounds are a shaded park of red walls and old banyans, open to anyone walking past.
Hayashi opened in December 1932 as the second department store in Taiwan, with the first lift in Tainan. Restored and reopened in 2014, it sells Tainan-made goods floor by floor. The rooftop shrine still carries Second World War strafing scars.
Tainan beef soup is breakfast: raw slices of same-day beef, cooked in the bowl by boiling broth poured over them. Hsi Lo Tien holds a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand for its version. Come early, which is when the city eats it.
Tainan's largest night market trades only on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, on an open lot north of the centre. In 2023 the Ministry of Economic Affairs gave it five stars, the only night market in southern Taiwan with the top grade.
Shi Wen-long, founder of the Chi Mei group, built a private collection of Western art, arms and armour, natural history and more than a thousand violins. Since 2015 it has filled a white neoclassical palace in Tainan Metropolitan Park.
Once Beishi Street, one of the Qing-era Five Channels harbour lanes, it keeps a run of narrow late-Qing and Japanese-era shophouses, now bars, cafes and studios. Jinhua Temple, from 1830, stands along it. The lanterns go on at dusk.
A vast Mazu complex near the lagoon, among the most visited temples in Taiwan.
Lantern Festival night in Yanshui, when rockets fire into the crowd from walls of tubes. Wear a full helmet.
Light installations along the old Yanshui harbour for about a month around the Lantern Festival.
Every three years Qingan Temple burns a full-size king boat to send off pestilence. The last was in May 2024.
The lotus fields of Baihe flower through the summer, and the blooms are best before 10:00.
Races on the canal at the Dragon Boat Festival, over 300 metres between the Anyi and Chengtian bridges.
Yujing's Irwin mangoes peak in July, and the district marks the harvest with a festival.
At Kailong Temple on Qixi, sixteen-year-olds pass under the Qiniangma pavilion to mark coming of age.
Theatre, dance and music across the city each autumn, running from late October into November.
A small airport south of the centre, with domestic flights to Kinmen and Penghu and a few regional routes. Most visitors fly into Taoyuan or Kaohsiung.
Tainan's high-speed station is at Gueiren, south-east of the city, about 1 hour 45 minutes from Taipei on the fastest trains. The Shalun Line shuttles to Tainan Station.
Tainan Station on Beimen Road is the hub for the old city. The faster west-coast trains reach Kaohsiung in about 35 minutes.
Tainan has no metro yet, so buses, taxis and scooters do the work. The Taiwan Tourist Shuttle runs lines out to Anping and the Taijiang coast.
Raw same-day beef cooked in the bowl by boiling broth. A breakfast dish.
A small bowl in shrimp broth with minced braised pork and one shrimp.
Rice in milkfish broth with the belly cut and fried garlic.
Fried thick toast, hollowed and filled with creamy chowder. Kangle Market, since 1942.
Minced shrimp rolled and deep-fried. Chou's has made them since 1965.
Steamed savoury rice pudding with pork, mushroom and egg yolk, soy-brown in the south.
Banquet sticky rice steamed under a whole mud crab.
Flash-fried eel over yi mian noodles, sweet and sour or dry.
Get our one-page Tainan cheat sheet plus a fresh destination every Thursday.
Taiwan
