Literally meaning “tide’s end”, Xizhi is located at the highest reach of the tidal zone on the Keelung River, some 30 kilometers above the estuary at Danshui.
Pronounced Shiodome in Japanese, this represented the colonial administration’s 1919 gentrification of the area’s earlier Hoklo name of 水返腳 (Tsui-tng-ka; Mdn. Shui-fan-jiao), which, meaning. “water returning site*”, also referred to the estuary tide stopping here before returning to the sea.
There was an earlier Plains Aboriginal village on the south bank of the Keelung River perhaps called something like Kypanas, which was transliterated into Hoklo as 峯仔峙社 (Phang-á-sī-siā) when Han-Chinese immigrants established a settlement around 1758
[*腳 literally "foot" but used for "place"]
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