From Takow to Kaohsiung

Shilin (士林) District, Taipei City

Taiwan place names regularly include a topographic element such as 山 (mountain / hill), 林 (wood), 溪 (river), 灣 (bay / bend in river) or 坑 (gorge). Nine times out of ten, maybe ninety-nine times out of a hundred, these do indeed correspond to local features.

Since many place names derive from transliterations (for more details: see here) of aboriginal names (even when the characters may appear to make sense), there are exceptions. And Shilin (士林) is one such. Appearing to mean something like "Scholars' Grove / Wood", it is actually derived from the Ketagalan aboriginal word Pattsiran (perhaps meaing "hot springs" and home to the Kimassauw Community 麻少翁社). This was initially transliterated as "八芝蘭" (Mdn. Bazhilan; Hoklo Pat-chi-lan; lit. "Eight Sesame Orchids").

This later became 芝蘭 and, by the late 19th century, since a number of local people had passed the imperial examination, it was nicknamed using the similarly-pronounced 士林 (Mdn. Shi-lin; Hoklo Su-lim; : "Scholar Thicket



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