Taito Prefectural Government Office Site

The Taito Prefectural Government Office (台東廳舍, Taitō-chō Chōsha) served as the administrative headquarters for Japan's governance of southeastern Taiwan from 1897 to 1945. Taito Prefecture (台東廳) was established on May 3, 1897, as part of Japan's reorganization of Taiwan's colonial administrative structure, initially overseeing both present-day Taitung and Hualien counties before the creation of Karenkō Prefecture (花蓮港廳) in 1909 reduced its jurisdiction to the area south of modern-day Haiduan, Chishang, and Changbin townships.

The first permanent prefectural office was completed in October 1899, replacing a temporary arrangement in which the colonial authorities had requisitioned the Chen family ancestral home on Guangdong Street. The new building was constructed on Malan Ridge Street (馬蘭坳街) using materials transported by ship from Kobe, Japan — a testament to the remoteness and underdevelopment of Taiwan's eastern coast at that time. However, the wooden structure proved vulnerable to the harsh subtropical climate, suffering progressive damage from termite infestation and then significant structural harm in a January 1909 earthquake.

The building's fate was sealed by a catastrophic typhoon in September 1919 that destroyed most of the structure. Construction of a replacement began in October 1921 under the Yukawa Construction Company (湯川組). The new office, completed in July 1922 at a cost of 96,500 yen, was a modern reinforced concrete two-story building — a significant upgrade reflecting both the advancing architectural capabilities of the colonial administration and the growing importance of Taitung as an administrative center for southeastern Taiwan.

Throughout the colonial period, the office administered a vast but sparsely populated territory of over 3,500 square kilometers encompassing mountain, valley, and coastal regions inhabited by various indigenous Austronesian peoples including the Amis, Puyuma, Bunun, and Rukai. The prefectural government oversaw colonial development programs including railway construction, camphor extraction, sugar cultivation, and the administration of indigenous communities.

After Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, the building was repurposed as the Taitung County Government headquarters under the Republic of China administration. It continued to serve in this capacity for three decades until renovation work began in June 1975, when a new county government complex was constructed. The original Japanese-era building no longer exists, but the site remains central to Taitung City's administrative district.