五堵車站 Wudu Railway Station, Xizhi District, New Taipei City

Wudu (五堵; lit. “fifth obstruction”) Railway Station
A sign on the Keelung River bike path offers two explanations:

i) 堵 (Hoklo: do) was used by local people to refer to the many hills in the area that obstructed their ease of movement, so 五堵was the “fifth hill” in a range southward from Nangang Mtn., and六堵, 七堵, 八堵 were the 6th, 7th and 8th.

ii) 五堵 (and the others) might alternatively have referred to a series of defensive ramparts erected between Aodi where Japanese forces landed in 1895, and Taipei, the seat of government. Although the Qing court ceded Taiwan (and Manchuria) to Japan as settlement of the 1894/95 Sino-Japanese War, some people fought to resist the takeover.

[MC adds: Not erected specifically to defend against the Japanese invasion, as they are also mentioned in the defense of northern Taiwan against the French invasion of Keelung in 1885.]






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