All historic sites
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217 sites · page 1 of 10
Former Taiwan Army Headquarters
台湾軍司令部跡
The Taiwan Army Headquarters (台湾軍司令部) was the supreme military command of the Imperial Japanese Army on Taiwan, established in 1919, with its headquarters at Shoin-chō 3-chōme (now 172 Bo'ai Road, Zhongzheng District), Taipei. Originally commanding garrison forces on the island, it became the basis of the 10th Area Army (第十方面軍), formed on September 22, 1944, to prepare for the anticipated Allied invasion of Taiwan (Operation Causeway). General Rikichi Andō served as the last commander, simultaneously holding the post of Governor-General of Taiwan. The headquarters building, constructed around 1920, was among the buildings damaged in the U.S. Fifth Air Force's Taipei Air Raid of May 31, 1945. After Japan's surrender, Andō signed the instrument of surrender at the nearby Taipei Public Auditorium (now Zhongshan Hall) on October 25, 1945. The former headquarters building survives and is now used by the Ministry of National Defense's reserve command.
Gangshan Naval Air Base (Aviation Education Exhibition Hall)
岡山海軍航空基地（空軍航空教育展示館）
Former Imperial Japanese Navy air base and site of the 61st Naval Air Arsenal (Dai-61 Kaigun Kōkūshō) in Gangshan, Kaohsiung. Established in 1941, the arsenal employed over 10,000 workers repairing and manufacturing aircraft, making it one of the largest Japanese naval aviation facilities in colonial Taiwan. Devastated by American B-29 bombing in mid-October 1944, among the heaviest air raids on Taiwan during the war. Now home to the ROCAF Aviation Education Exhibition Hall, displaying over 40 military aircraft.
Hsinchu Airfield (Shinchiku Airfield)
新竹飛行場
A major Imperial Japanese military airfield in northern Taiwan established in 1936, and the target of the first American air raid on Formosa on November 25, 1943, when 14th Air Force and Chinese-American Composite Wing B-25s claimed some 40 Japanese aircraft destroyed on the ground. Shinchiku received the greatest tonnage of American bombs among all locations on Taiwan during the war. Now an active Republic of China Air Force base.
Jinguashi Mine (New Taipei City Gold Museum)
金瓜石鉱山（黄金博物館）
The Jinguashi Mine (金瓜石鉱山, Kinkaseki kōzan) was one of the largest gold and copper mines in East Asia, located in Ruifang District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. Placer gold was found in the Keelung River in 1890 and the Jinguashi ore body in 1893, during the late Qing dynasty, and under Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945) the mine came to be known as the foremost precious-metal mine in Asia and was Taiwan's leading copper producer. Operated successively by the Tanaka Group, Ushiroku Shintarō's Kinkaseki Mining Company (from 1925) and Nippon Mining Company (日本鉱業, from 1933), the mine's gold output peaked around 1938 at over 70,000 taels (roughly 2.6 tonnes) a year; copper output in 1936 is given as 7,350 tons or about 11,000 tons depending on the source. During WWII, the mine was designated a critical strategic resource; production was intensified using forced labour from Allied POWs held at the adjacent Kinkaseki POW Camp. US Navy wartime intelligence identified the Kinkaseki gold mines as among Imperial Japan's largest gold sources. Mining continued under the ROC government's Taiwan Metals Mining Company until closure in 1987. The site was transformed into the Gold Ecological Park (黃金博物園區) in November 2004, Taiwan's first ecological museum, now known as the New Taipei City Gold Museum.
Keelung Fortress (Baimiweng Fort and Battery Complex)
基隆要塞（白米甕砲台）
The Keelung Fortress was the principal coastal defense system protecting northern Taiwan, centered on the strategic port of Keelung (Kiirun). Originally established during the Qing Dynasty with batteries guarding the harbor approaches, the fortress complex was substantially expanded and modernized by the Imperial Japanese Army from 1899 under the "Keelung Fortress Defense (Permanent) Essentials" plan. The most prominent surviving installation is the Baimiweng Fort (白米甕砲台), completed in 1902 with four 203.5mm Armstrong cannons at 70 meters elevation, representing the apex of Japanese colonial coastal artillery design in Taiwan. The fortress system included batteries at Dawulun, Gangziliao, Sheliao East, Ershawan, and Shiqiuling, collectively forming a ring of fire around Keelung Harbor. During WWII, the fortress defended against Allied air and naval operations targeting Keelung port. Today the batteries are designated as municipal monuments and national historic sites.
Keelung Port (Kiirun Naval Port)
基隆港
The largest port in northern Taiwan and a major Imperial Japanese Navy base during World War II. Originally developed as a commercial gateway between Taiwan and Japan, Keelung Port also served as a naval base, repair facility, and military shipping hub for operations toward China, the Philippines, and Palau. It was subjected to devastating US Army Air Force bombing raids in 1944–1945, culminating in the catastrophic June 1945 Keelung Air Raid.
Makō Guard District
馬公要港部
The Imperial Japanese Navy's principal base in the Pescadores (Penghu) Islands and the core of Taiwan Strait defense. Established in 1901, it served as a staging point for southward advance operations, supporting fleet actions across the South China Sea and Southeast Asia. Now the Republic of China Navy's Magong Base.
Matsuyama Airfield (Songshan Airport)
松山飛行場（臺北飛行場）
Imperial Japanese military airfield in Taihoku (Taipei), Taiwan, operational from 1936. In 1937 it served as the launch base for the Kanoya Air Group's cross-strait bombing raids against China, marking one of the first trans-oceanic bombing missions in history. It was repeatedly bombed by Allied forces in 1944-1945; the May 31, 1945 Raid on Taipei — the largest air raid on the city during the war — was aimed mainly at the government and military quarter of the city centre. Now Taipei Songshan Airport.
Port of Kaohsiung (Former Takao Harbor)
高雄港（旧打狗港）
Taiwan's largest commercial port and Japan's critical southern resource relay hub during World War II. Originally a shallow lagoon known as Takao (打狗), the port underwent three phases of Japanese colonial harbor construction (1908–1944) that transformed it into a deep-water industrial port. Under the wartime southern advance policy (南進政策), Kaohsiung served as the primary transshipment node for Southeast Asian raw materials — oil, rubber, bauxite, and tin — routed to Japan's home islands. Adjacent zaibatsu factories processed bauxite into aluminum for aircraft production. Complementing the nearby Zuoying Naval Base (左營軍港/高雄警備府), the port itself handled military logistics, troop transport, and supply staging for operations toward the Philippines and Southeast Asia. From October 1944, US carrier and land-based aircraft devastated the harbor in repeated raids; the Japanese Navy ultimately scuttled five large vessels to block the harbor entrance against anticipated American landings. The Enoura Maru POW transport was bombed in the harbor on 9 January 1945, killing approximately 300–400 Allied prisoners of war.
Railway Department of the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan (Railway Department Park)
台湾総督府交通局鉄道部（鉄道部園区）
The Railway Department of the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan was the colonial administrative headquarters for railway transport across Taiwan from 1919 to 1945. Located adjacent to the Taipei North Gate (北門), the English half-timbered main building (brick below, timber above) was designed by architect Moriyama Matsunosuke and completed in two phases in 1919 and 1920, replacing the earlier Qing-dynasty Taipei Machinery Bureau on the same site. During the war years the department managed all military logistics rail movements across the island, coordinating troop transport, materiel shipments, and industrial freight for Japan's southern front operations. After 1945 the complex served as the headquarters of the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) until 1990. Designated a National Monument in 2007, the six surviving structures — including the main hall, dining hall, octagonal lavatory building, power room, engineering office, and 1943 wartime command center — underwent meticulous restoration. The park reopened in July 2020 as a branch of the National Taiwan Museum, exhibiting Taiwan's railway heritage from the colonial era through the postwar period.
Taihoku Imperial University (now National Taiwan University)
台北帝国大学（現・国立台湾大学）
Taihoku Imperial University (台北帝国大学), established on March 16, 1928, was the seventh of Japan's nine imperial universities and the highest institution of learning in colonial Taiwan. Located in Taihoku (Taipei) with faculties of Literature & Politics, Science & Agriculture, Medicine (1936), and Engineering (1943), it served as the academic center for Japan's "southward advance" (南進) policy. Wartime research institutes — the Tropical Medicine Research Institute (1939), the Southern Humanities Research Institute (1943), and the Southern Resources Science Research Institute (1943) — conducted strategic studies on tropical diseases, Southeast Asian resources, and ethnography to support the empire's expansion into the South Seas. Students were mobilized under the 1943 gakuto shutsujin (学徒出陣) conscription. The university hospital was damaged during the May 31, 1945 Taipei Air Raid. After Japan's surrender, the university was renamed National Taiwan University (國立臺灣大學) in November 1945 under ROC administration.
Taiwan Governor-General Central Research Institute
台湾総督府中央研究所
The Central Research Institute of the Taiwan Governor-General's Office (台湾総督府中央研究所) was established in 1921 by merging earlier research bodies into a unified institution in Taipei. It conducted comprehensive research across agriculture, forestry, industry, and tropical hygiene — fields directly supporting colonial resource exploitation and wartime logistics. The institute was dissolved in 1939 and split into four successor organizations. Its original French Renaissance-style building (built 1907–1909) was damaged during WWII bombing and later demolished in stages (1971 and 1996).
Taiwan Governor-General's Monopoly Bureau
台湾総督府専売局
The Taiwan Governor-General's Monopoly Bureau (臺灣總督府專賣局), built 1912–1922 and designed by Matsunosuke Moriyama, was the administrative headquarters of Japan's colonial monopoly system in Taiwan. The Bureau controlled the production and sale of opium, camphor, salt, tobacco, alcohol, matches, petroleum, and measuring instruments — revenues that at their peak constituted about 40% of the colonial government's total income. The Renaissance-style red-brick building on Nanchang Road in Taipei survives today as the headquarters of the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation, designated a National Monument in 1998.
Taiwan Governor-General's Office
台湾総督府
The Taiwan Governor-General's Office (台灣總督府), completed in 1919, served from then until 1945 as the supreme administrative center of Japanese colonial rule over Taiwan (1895–1945). Designed by Uheiji Nagano and modified by Matsunosuke Moriyama, the Renaissance-style building with its iconic 60-meter central tower was the tallest structure in the Taipei Basin during Japanese rule. On May 31, 1945, it was directly hit during the devastating Raid on Taipei by 117 U.S. B-24 Liberator bombers (118 in some accounts), suffering extensive fire damage. Restored in 1947–1948, it now serves as the Presidential Office Building of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
Taiwan Grand Shrine
臺灣神宮
The Taiwan Grand Shrine (Taiwan Jingū) was the highest-ranking Shinto shrine in colonial Taiwan, originally established in 1901 as the Taiwan Shrine (Taiwan Jinja) on Jiantan Mountain beside Maruyama (Yuanshan) in Taihoku (Taipei). Dedicated to Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa and the three pioneering deities (Kaitaku Sanjin), it was elevated to Grand Shrine status in 1944 when Amaterasu was enshrined. On October 23, 1944, a Japanese military aircraft crashed beside the newly built shrine precinct, and the resulting fire destroyed many of its structures. The shrine was never repaired; after Japan's surrender the original site was cleared for the Taiwan Hotel, which was renamed the Grand Hotel Taipei in 1952 and still stands on the original Jiantan Mountain site today.
Wushe Incident Memorial Park (Mona Rudao Memorial Park)
霧社事件紀念公園（莫那魯道紀念公園）
The Wushe Incident Memorial Park in Ren'ai Township, Nantou County, Taiwan, commemorates the 1930 Wushe Incident (霧社事件) — the largest armed uprising by indigenous Taiwanese against Japanese colonial rule. Led by Seediq chief Mona Rudao, warriors from six communities attacked a Japanese sports day gathering on 27 October 1930, killing 134 Japanese. The brutal suppression that followed claimed over 600 Seediq lives. Established in 1953, the park houses Mona Rudao's tomb (remains interred in 1973), the Anti-Japanese Monument, and a bronze group sculpture of Seediq warriors. The incident inspired the 2011 blockbuster film "Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale."
Zuoying Naval Base (Former 6th Naval Fuel Arsenal)
左営軍港・第六海軍燃料廠
The Imperial Japanese Navy's largest base in Taiwan, established at Zuoying (Toshien/左營) in southern Takao (Kaohsiung). Headquarters of the Takao Guard District from April 1943, the complex included the 6th Naval Fuel Arsenal (第六海軍燃料廠), which was established on 1 April 1944 to produce aviation fuel and other petroleum products. Bombed by US aircraft from October 1944 onward. Now the Republic of China Navy's largest naval base and home to the ROC Fleet Command.
Ama Museum — Peace and Women's Human Rights Museum
阿嬤家―平和と女性人権館
Taiwan's only museum dedicated to the memory of Taiwanese comfort women (慰安婦) forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese military during World War II. Established by the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation, the museum opened on December 10, 2016 — International Human Rights Day — and documents the stories of approximately 59 Taiwanese survivors through oral histories, personal artifacts, and audiovisual archives collected over decades of research since 1992.
Bank of Taiwan Head Office Building
臺灣銀行本店
The Bank of Taiwan Head Office Building (completed 1937) at No. 120, Section 1, Chongqing South Road, Taipei, was the financial nerve center of Japanese colonial Taiwan. Designed by architect Yoshitoki Nishimura in a neoclassical style with massive granite Corinthian columns, the three-story reinforced-concrete building replaced an earlier 1903 structure damaged by termites. As the sole issuer of Taiwanese yen banknotes from 1899, the Bank of Taiwan financed colonial industrial expansion, wartime military procurement, and trade networks spanning South China and Southeast Asia. The building sustained roof damage during Allied air raids on Taipei in 1945, was repaired postwar, and resumed operations on May 20, 1946 under ROC administration. Designated a Taipei Municipal Historic Site in 1998, it remains the active headquarters of the Bank of Taiwan.
Banpingshan Tunnel Factories (6th Naval Fuel Depot Remnants)
半屏山日本軍坑道洞窟工場（第六海軍燃料廠跡）
Three underground factory tunnels excavated into the south slope of Banpingshan (Half-Screen Mountain) in late 1944 by the Japanese Navy, after continuous US air raids made surface operations at the 6th Naval Fuel Depot impossible. The tunnels housed oxygen production and machinery workshops. Accidentally rediscovered during high-speed rail construction in 2002-2003, they remain as rare surviving examples of wartime underground industrial facilities.
Ciaotou Sugar Factory (Kio-a-thau Sugar Refinery)
橋仔頭製糖所（台湾製糖橋仔頭工場）
Taiwan's first modern mechanized sugar factory, established in 1901 by the Taiwan Sugar Manufacturing Company (台灣製糖株式會社) during Japanese colonial rule. Located in Ciaotou (then Kio-a-thau), Kaohsiung, it symbolized Japan's drive to industrialize Taiwan's sugar output for the empire. During WWII, the factory produced ethanol as a military fuel substitute, making it a strategic target for Allied bombing. Today the site is preserved as the Taiwan Sugar Museum, with 19 designated heritage structures including Japanese-era dormitories, a Dutch-colonial-style office, air-raid shelters, and a red-brick water tower.
Dadaocheng Air Raid Devastation Area
大稻埕空襲被災地区
The historic Dadaocheng commercial district in northern Taipei was one of the hardest-hit civilian areas during the May 31, 1945 air raid. Bombs fell from Rixin National School (now Rixin Elementary School) on Taiyuan Road through Penglai Elementary School to the Catholic Immaculate Conception Cathedral (蓬萊天主堂), which was completely destroyed. The densely populated merchant quarter suffered catastrophic civilian casualties.
Ershawan Battery (Tenable Gate of the Sea)
二沙湾砲台（海門天険）
A national historic monument in Keelung, Taiwan, originally built in 1840 during the Opium War by Qing official Yao Ying to repel British naval forces. Destroyed during the Sino-French War in 1884, the battery was rebuilt at its current hilltop location by Governor Liu Mingchuan between 1886 and 1889, incorporating German-engineered Armstrong breech-loading guns. Occupied by French forces (who renamed it Fort La Galissonnière) during the Keelung Campaign of 1884–1885, and briefly bombarded by five Japanese warships during the 1895 Battle of Keelung. Under Japanese colonial rule the fort lost its military significance and fell into disrepair. Designated a Class One National Historic Monument in 1983, the site preserves Qing-era stone gates, gun emplacements, ammunition depots, barracks, and wells.
Former Fudingkin Japanese Military Cemetery
覆鼎金日本軍人墓地跡
Site of a large Japanese burial ground in southern Taiwan, located in the Fudingkin (覆鼎金) area of Kaohsiung's Sanmin District. Originally part of the expansive Fudingkin Public Cemetery, this section housed the graves of Japanese soldiers and civilians who died during the colonial period (1895–1945) and WWII. When Zuoying was designated a military port during WWII, mass grave relocations from the Taoziyuan and Qianfengwei cemeteries created a large-scale Japanese burial ground here. After Japan's defeat in 1945, many Japanese graves were vandalized during anti-Japanese sentiment, and in 1957 the Japanese embassy collaborated with the ROC government to collect scattered Japanese remains, establishing the "Southern Region Japanese Remains Repository" (南部地區日本人遺骨安置所) within the tomb of businessman Sugimoto Otokichi (杉本音吉). The entire Fudingkin Cemetery was converted to parkland (Shuanghu Forest Park) between 2015 and 2020, with approximately 16,000 graves relocated.