Taipei has served as the capital of the Republic of China on Taiwan since 1949, when the ROC government relocated from Nanjing following the Chinese Civil War. The city itself was established during the Qing Dynasty in 1875 and became the island's political center under Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945. Today Taipei functions as the seat of government for Taiwan's 23.5 million residents, housing the Presidential Office Building, Legislative Yuan, Executive Yuan, Judicial Yuan, and Examination Yuan. The city proper contains approximately 2.6 million people within its 271.8 square kilometers, though the greater Taipei metropolitan area—including New Taipei City that surrounds the capital—holds roughly 7 million residents. Taipei sits in the Taipei Basin, a geographic depression formed by tectonic activity and erosion, at the northern tip of Taiwan Island where the Tamsui River meets the Pacific Ocean drainage system.
The Presidential Office Building occupies a prominent position on Ketagalan Boulevard in the Zhongzheng District. Constructed between 1912 and 1919 during Japanese colonial rule, the red brick structure was designed by Uheiji Nagano and originally served as the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan. The building stands 60 meters tall including its central tower, which was the tallest structure in Taiwan when completed. The architectural style combines Renaissance and Baroque elements, with the floor plan forming the Chinese character for "sun" when viewed from above—a design choice made by the Japanese colonial administration. After 1945, the building transitioned to house the Kuomintang government and has served as the presidential office continuously since 1950. Public tours occur on weekdays and require advance registration with passport or identification.
Taipei 101 dominated the city skyline from its completion in 2004 until 2010, when the Burj Khalifa surpassed it. The tower reaches 508 meters across 101 above-ground floors, with the design incorporating eight upward-flaring sections meant to evoke a bamboo stalk. C.Y. Lee & Partners created the design, while KTRT Joint Venture handled construction between 1999 and 2004. The building cost approximately USD 1.8 billion to complete. A 660-metric-ton tuned mass damper suspended between the 87th and 92nd floors stabilizes the structure against typhoons and earthquakes—Taiwan sits on the boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate, making seismic activity routine. The damper consists of 41 circular steel plates welded together, hanging from steel cables. Observatory decks on floors 89 and 91 open to visitors daily, with elevators ascending at 1,010 meters per minute.
The National Palace Museum in the Shilin District houses approximately 700,000 artifacts and artworks spanning 8,000 years of Chinese history. The collection originated in the Forbidden City in Beijing, where it served as the imperial collection of the Qing Dynasty emperors. In 1933, as Japanese forces advanced during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Nationalist authorities began moving portions of the collection south and west across China. Following the Communist victory in 1949, approximately 2,972 crates containing roughly 600,000 items were shipped to Taiwan. The current museum building opened in 1965 in the mountains north of central Taipei. Exhibits rotate every three months due to the collection's size—only about 1 percent displays at any given time. The museum holds the carved jadeite cabbage known as the Jadeite Cabbage, created during the Qing Dynasty, and a piece of jasper carved to resemble braised pork belly called the Meat-shaped Stone, also from the Qing period.
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall occupies 25 hectares in the Zhongzheng District, constructed between 1976 and 1980 to honor the ROC president who governed from 1928 until his death in 1975. The main hall rises 70 meters—a number chosen to represent Chiang's age at death. Yang Cho-cheng designed the white marble structure with a blue octagonal roof covered in 89,112 glazed tiles, each tile colored to match the blue in the ROC flag. The roof's octagon shape references the eight-sided ba gua symbol from Taoist cosmology. A bronze statue of Chiang, 6.3 meters tall and weighing 25 metric tons, sits inside the main hall. Honor guards perform changing-of-the-guard ceremonies hourly from 0900 to 1700 daily. The memorial grounds include Liberty Square, renamed from its original "Great Centrality and Perfect Uprightness Square" in 2007 during a period of political debate over Chiang's authoritarian rule and role in the White Terror period from 1949 to 1987.
Longshan Temple stands in the Wanhua District, the oldest continuously inhabited area of Taipei. Settlers from Fujian Province established the temple in 1738 as a place of worship honoring Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion. The current structures date from 1919 and 1926, following destruction by earthquakes and typhoons in earlier centuries. Allied bombing during World War II severely damaged the temple in 1945—the main hall burned while the statue of Guanyin reportedly remained intact, an event that reinforced the temple's significance to local residents. The temple follows traditional southern Fujian architectural patterns, with a front hall, main hall, and rear hall arranged around courtyards. Stone columns feature dragon carvings, bronze work decorates the roof ridges, and the ceiling displays carved wooden panels. The temple serves as an active worship site where Buddhist, Taoist, and folk religion practices intersect, reflecting the syncretic nature of popular religion in Taiwan.
Taipei Main Station functions as the transportation hub for the entire island. The current station building, the fourth iteration on this site, opened in 1989 and was renovated in 2003. The station handles approximately 500,000 passengers daily across multiple rail systems: Taiwan Railways Administration conventional rail running north-south along both coasts and through the interior, Taiwan High Speed Rail connecting Taipei to Kaohsiung in roughly 90 minutes at speeds reaching 300 kilometers per hour, and the Taipei Metro rapid transit system. The MRT began operations in 1996 and has expanded to six lines totaling 131 kilometers as of 2023. The station complex extends four floors underground and includes commercial space, a food court, and direct connections to nearby department stores through underground passages. The massive ground-floor lobby contains an open seating area where migrant workers from Southeast Asian countries gather on weekends, creating what anthropologists have documented as a significant transnational social space.
Beitou District in northern Taipei contains hot spring resorts that have operated since the Japanese colonial period. Beitou's thermal waters emerge from volcanic activity associated with the Tatun Volcano Group in nearby Yangmingshan National Park. The springs were developed into bathing facilities starting in 1896 during Japanese rule, modeled after Japanese onsen culture. The Beitou Hot Spring Museum, housed in a 1913 bathhouse building, documents this history. Water temperatures in Beitou's springs range from 50 to 90 degrees Celsius, with mineral content including sulfur, radium, and iron. The area contains three main types of hot springs: white sulfur springs with acidic pH, blue sulfur springs also acidic, and iron springs. Hell Valley, called Thermal Valley or Xiaoyoukeng, produces sulfurous steam and heated water reaching 100 degrees Celsius, creating clouds of white vapor. The valley's crater formed from volcanic activity approximately 1,500 years ago.
The Shilin Night Market operates in the Shilin District, though its exact founding date remains uncertain—operations likely began in the 1890s. The market relocated to its current location on Jihe Road in 2002, moving from its previous open-air configuration to a two-story structure housing food vendors on the underground level. Approximately 500 vendors operate in and around the official market building, with unofficial vendors spreading into adjacent streets. Operating hours run from late afternoon until after midnight, with peak crowds between 1900 and 2300. The market sells food items including oyster omelettes, stinky tofu fermented in brine for several days, Taiwanese fried chicken cutlets, and large sausages wrapped in sticky rice. Shilin represents one of approximately 300 night markets operating across Taiwan, a market culture that began during the Qing Dynasty when farmers sold produce after daytime farm work.