From Takow to Kaohsiung

Gongguan (公館), Zhongzheng District, Taipei City.

Gongguan is a very common place name in Taiwan, with around 65 examples ranging from single houses and streets to this area of Taipei and Gongguan Township (公館鄉) in Miaoli County, making it the 3rd most widespread topographical name*.

.................... Graffiti in Gongguan recalling Gongguan's former TRA railway station

Literally meaning “public hall” or possibly “duke’s hall”, it generally referred to the mansion or grand residence of a rich or important person, often the home of the head official in a locality.

As such, and in the absence of local government offices, such buildings were used for conducting interactions between local people. This example in Taipei (which in fact was originally located some distance further south, near the confluence of the Jingmei (景美溪) and Xindian (新店溪) rivers), was apparently used for negotations and the collection of farmland rents between Aborigines and immigrating Han-Chinese from the Quanzhou (泉州) area of Fujian Province.



*Professor Lai Chin-kui (賴進貴) of the Department of Geography at National Taiwan University; 2017 National Geographic article.



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