Yuanlin Credit Union (員林信用合作社)
A derelict bank near Yuanlin Station, a relic of bank runs in the 1990s. It was abandoned for many years before it was sold and converted into a KTV around 2023.
Spectral Codex
Photo essays, road trips, and a geospatial database with a particular emphasis on the history and culture of Taiwan.
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Ershui Public Hall (二水公會堂)
Completed in 1930, this hall was used for public meetings, elections, and other civic functions. It was mainly an office for the hokō system (保甲制度) of community policing and collective punishment in Ershui. Registered as a historic building in 2019, it has never been repaired; the roof has since collapsed and only the four walls remain. Behind the hall is a Japanese style dorm with a historic…
Karenko POW Camp (花蓮戰俘營)
A monument erected in 2012 in front of the former site of the POW camp at Karenko. Karenko was the POW camp in Taiwan where Imperial Japan held the most senior Allied officers taken in the opening year of World War 2. These officers were separated from the men they led, starting in August 1942 with the arrival of US Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright and 178 others taken from the Philippines.…
Jinzi Theater (金紫戲院)
A slightly Art Deco style pervades the architecture of this small town theater. Jinzi Theater was built in Anxiliao (安溪寮) by Lin Yaodong (林耀東), a resident of Yanshui, who named it for an ancestor, Lin Jinzi (林金紫). Completed in 1956, it is remarkable for its relatively grand scale despite being located in a small village in rural Houbi, Tainan. Management changed hands twice within a few years of…
Ōhashi-gumi Supervisor’s Dormitory (豐里移民村大橋組指導官舍)
The frontal view of the old dormitory sometime after it collapsed. This traditional wooden residence once housed the supervisor or shidō-kan (指導官) of Ōhashi-gumi (大橋組), the largest of four settlements that made up Toyosato Immigrant Village (豐里移民村), one of many such Japanese settler-colonial projects on reclaimed river land in Changhua County in the 1930s. This particular village was established…
Putuoshan White Temple (普陀山白衣道場)
A striking all-white monastery in the hills of Tainan.
Dongtaizigong Salt Transfer Station (東太子宮鹽運聯合轉運臺)
Located on the southwestern outskirts of Xinying, Tainan, this was a former transshipment station for salt produced at the solar evaporation ponds of the Qigu Saltworks (七股鹽場) and Budai Saltworks (布袋鹽場). In the mid-1950s salt production outpaced domestic consumption, prompting the state to invest in infrastructure to trade salt on the international market. Construction of this particular facility…
Qigu Saltworks Dingshan Production Area (七股鹽場頂山生產區)
The No. 2 Pump House can be found next to the newly-built Western Coastal Expressway. Qigu Saltworks (七股鹽場) was the largest salt field in Taiwan and the last to shut down in 2002. Dingshan Village (頂山里) was the site of the 1st Production Area (第一生產區) of the saltworks, largely on land expropriated from the local population, who had previously prospered as fish farmers. Numerous relics of the…
Eguchi Ryōzaburō Monument (江口氏紀念碑)
A newly-manufactured (and already weatherworn) torii stands in front of the reinstalled monument. Along the waterfront in the Port of Hualien stands a monument dedicated to the memory of Eguchi Ryōzaburō (江口良三郎), a career soldier, policeman, and veteran of the 1914 Truku War (太魯閣戰爭) who headed the colonial government’s Aborigine Affairs Section (理蕃課) before serving as the fifth sub-prefect of…
Shirakawa Shinto Shrine (瑞穗白川神社)
Originally established in February 1933 as Baiko-sha (拔子社) at the foot of Langtoushan (狼頭山), just north of present-day Fuyuan Elementary School in Ruisui, Hualien. It was renamed Shirakawa-jinja (白川神社) in 1937 under a the colonial era naming reforms of the early Kōminka movement (皇民化運動). In the post-war period the site reverted to private ownership, and a series of strong typhoons in the 1950s…
Fuxing Fishermen’s Association Welfare Store (彰化縣福興區漁會漁民福利社)
Gutted ruins of an old association hall. Not too much to see here.
Mailiao Jincheng Theater (麥寮金城大戲院)
Built in the remote coastal town of Mailiao in 1965. This theater shut down in the 1970s due to fierce competition but enjoyed a second life under new ownership and operated into the 1980s. It is still standing and long abandoned, a fixture of the urban exploration scene in Taiwan.
Lincuo Anti-Airborne Fortifications North Section (林厝反空降陣地北段)
The northern half of the Lincuo Anti-Airborne Position (林厝反空降陣地) runs through farmland and a hillside cemetery in Daya, picking up where the cluster of forts around Taichung Metropolitan Park (台中都會公園) leaves off. These five emplacements were commissioned by the Ministry of National Defense in 1977 as part of a network of nine new machine gun bunkers along the central Dadu Plateau, all sited to…
Lincuo Anti-Airborne Fortifications South Section (林厝反空降陣地南段)
Dàdù Plateau (大肚台地) is a geographic feature of great strategic importance to the defense of central Taiwan. It overlooks the coastal Qingshui Plain (清水平原) and occupies high ground on the westernmost edge of the Taichung Basin (台中盆地), home to the majority of the population of Taichung, the third most populous metropolitan area in the nation. The entire length of the plateau is peppered with…
Tianmu US Military Housing (天母美軍宿舍群)
The hills at the northern margins of Tianmu in Taipei are home to several abandoned residences widely known in the urban exploration community in Taiwan. Although not substantiated by official records these structures were almost certainly built with funding from the Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行) for US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) personnel stationed in the area from the early 1950s to the…
Dahu Little Tianmu Villas (大湖小天母別墅)
An unfinished townhouse complex on the edge of central Dahu that became a symbol of developer fraud in rural Taiwan. Construction began in 1993 but the 54 units were never completed; buyers were left with debt and uninhabitable shells. The ruins have stood abandoned for three decades.
Linkou Shengtai Brick Kiln (林口勝泰磚窯)
A former brick-making complex established in the 1960s on the outskirts of Linkou. It has long been abandoned but the chimney of at least one Hoffmann kilns was still standing in 2017.
Yingge Nanmen Market Building (鶯歌南門商場大樓)
A dilapidated market building established in Yingge in 1968. It has an unclear relationship to the former Rongsheng Theater (榮聲戲院), which operated from 1963 to around 1987 immediately next to the market, or possibly in the same structure. As of 2025 the upper levels of this former market are filled with semi-abandoned apartments occupied by the urban poor. The building has obviously undergone…
Changle Theater (大樹昌樂大戲院)
Established by Xu Kaichuan (許開傳) in 1960 on the land behind Guangming Theater (光明戲院). It is an impressive structure with room for 750 seats in the main hall on the second floor. Business was poor in the 1980s and home television and video caught on and the theater shut down in 1987. Since then property rights disputes have kept the theater in limbo.
Xinglin General Hospital (杏林綜合醫院)
Established in 1975, this hospital shut down in 1993 after a number of scandals, and has been abandoned ever since. Such a prominent ruin in the downtown core has naturally attracted adventure-seekers and urban explorers, and the hospital became a famous “haunted” site, and even a backdrop for film sets. Exercise caution when visiting, the site is not at all maintained!