Madou (Mato) Airfield

Madou Airfield (麻豆飛行場, also known as Mato Airdrome in wartime records) was a Japanese military airfield located in present-day Madou District, Tainan City, Taiwan. The site's history is intertwined with the Zongye Sugar Factory, established by the Meiji Sugar Company (明治製糖株式會社) in 1910 during the Japanese colonial period.

The sugar factory complex was built under the supervision of company engineer Yasuda (安田昌), with construction beginning in September 1910. By mid-1911, 76 buildings had been completed, including the main office, repair facility, parking lot, post office, clinic, club (guest house), and dormitories. The architecture featured a distinctive mix of European-style red brick buildings for official use and Japanese-style wooden structures for residential areas.

During World War II, the Japanese military constructed an airfield at the site as part of their extensive network of airstrips across Taiwan. By 1945, Taiwan hosted over 50 airfields, forming an airdrome system that American intelligence described as "superior to anything found outside the home islands." The exact location and extent of the airfield relative to the sugar factory grounds is not documented in the sources consulted. The WWII-era airstrip was still under construction when American forces attacked on March 2, 1945, finding "an unfinished airstrip" with construction equipment and raw mud. US Navy TBF Avenger bombers also attacked grounded Japanese planes at the site on January 4, 1945.

After the war, the sugar factory — itself damaged by wartime bombing — resumed production under the Taiwan Sugar Corporation in 1947 and operated until it was closed in November 1990. In 2001, the Tainan County Government transformed the former factory grounds into the Tsung-Yeh Arts and Cultural Center (總爺藝文中心). The center preserves several Japanese colonial-era buildings, including the distinctive red brick office building and the wooden guest house, both among the buildings designated as county monuments in 1999 (now municipal monuments of Tainan). The site also houses the Yan Shui-long (顏水龍) Memorial Hall, honoring the renowned Taiwanese artist.

Today, the Tsung-Yeh Arts and Cultural Center serves as an active cultural venue with artist residency programs, exhibition spaces, and public green areas. The preserved Japanese-era architecture provides a tangible connection to the site's colonial and wartime past, while the surrounding landscape retains traces of both the sugar factory and airfield operations.