Keelung (基隆) City Index:

Ren-ai (仁愛) District

New Taipei City (新北市) Index:

Bali (八里) District
......... Dabenkeng (大坌坑) Site / prehistoric culture
Banqiao (板橋) District
Gongliao (貢寮) District
Sandiaojiao (三貂角) District
...,,,,,, Sandiaoling Station (三貂嶺車站)

Luzhou (蘆洲) District
Sanchong (三重) District
Sanxia (三峽) District
Shiding (石碇) District
Shimen (石門) District
......... Fugui (富貴) Cape
Shuangxi (雙溪) District
Tucheng (土城) District
Wanli (萬里) District
......... Yeliu (野柳) Harbor
Wugu (五股) District
Wulai (烏來) District
Xizhi (汐止) District
......... Wudu Railway Station (五堵車站)
Xindian (新店)
......... Ankeng (安坑)
........ Bitan (碧潭)
........ Dapinglin (大坪林) MRT Station

Taiwan Index:

Taiwan (台灣 / 臺灣)
Ilha Formosa




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Taipei City (台北) Index:

Beitou (北投) District
......... Yangming Mountain (陽明山)

Daan (大安) District
......... Guting (古亭)
Datong (大同) District
Nangang (南港路) District
Shilin (士林) District
Songshan (松山) District
Wanhua (萬華) District
........ Ximending (西門町)
Wenshan (文山) District
........... Muzha (木柵)
Xinyi (信義) District
Zhongzheng (中正) District
......... Gongguan (公館)

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On the Transliteration of aboriginal names

Given that Chinese is the main language used in Taiwan (with Mandarin pronunciation predominant politically even if not numerically), it is tempting to view place names through this lens. Thus Taipei (台北) is the main city of "northern" (北) "Tai"(台)-wan; Taoyuan (桃園) was a "garden" (園) full of "peach trees" (桃); and Xiangshan (象山) is a "hill" (山) that, from the right angle, resembles an "elephant" (象).

It should not be forgotten, however, that Chinese characters have pronunciations as well as meanings. This might seem a banal thing to point out but, since Chinese lacks an alphabet, when characters are used merely for their phonetic values, they inevitably appear to bring with them their original meanings.

This was one of the main ways that the Chinese written language developed thousands of years ago, with "loan words" (假借字; Mdn. jiajiezì) adopted when, for example, a pictograph of something concrete was borrowed to indicate something abstract with the same or similar pronunciation (with the borrowed character then often losing its original meaning or, frequently, being adapted through addition of a new semantic or phonetic element). Thus, since Chinese people tend to point at their noses to indicate themselves, the original character for a nose, 自, was borrowed to mean "oneself" and no longer means "nose".

This kind of borrowing continued into modern times, particularly when transliterating foreign words into Chinese. Thus Frederick is 弗雷德里克 (Mdn. Fu-lei-de-li-ke; lit. "Not-thunder-virtue-mile-win") and New York is 紐約 (Mdn. Niu-yue; lit. "Button Treaty").

It was also used during the early years of Han-Chinese immigration into Taiwan to transliterate aboriginal names, albeit generally using pronunciations of Chinese characters based on Zhangzhou or Quanzhou forms of Fujianese (here usually referred to by the catch-all "Hoklo Taiwanese") or one of various forms of Hakka language (most commonly in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli). This, naturally, makes deciphering toponymic evolution rather prone to errors and misunderstandings [MC: and is certainly far beyond my linguistic abilities].

Taiwan (台灣) was, therefore, not a "terrace" overlooking a "bay", Yuanli (苑裡) in Miaoli County was not something "inside" (裡) a "garden" (苑), and Luermen (鹿耳門) in historical Tainan was not a "gate / port" (門) through which "deer" (鹿) "ears" (耳) were exported. On the contrary, all three are transliterations of aboriginal place names.



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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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Shuangxi (雙溪) District, New Taipei City

Shuangxi (雙溪; Hoklo: Siang-khe; lit. "Pair [of] Rivers") takes its name from the confluence, at the township's historic center, of the Mudan River (牡丹溪; lit. "Peony River") and Pinglin River (平林溪; lit. "Flat Wood River"). These together form the Shuang River (雙溪; "Pair of / Double River"), which flows for a short distance before entering the sea at Fulong (福隆).

Other sources suggest that the town (and the upper reaches of the river) was originally called 頂雙溪 (Mdn. Dingshuangxi; lit. "Upper Double River") with the lower reaches called the 下雙溪 (Mdn. Xiashuangxi; "Lower Double River"). In any case, it seems that the rivers in this area changed names on several occasions.



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