Lukang
Lukang 鹿港 鎮 |
||
![]() Location of Lukang in Changhua County |
||
State : |
![]() |
|
County : | Changhua | |
Coordinates : | 24 ° 3 ′ N , 120 ° 26 ′ E | |
Height : | 10 m | |
Area : | 39.46 km² | |
Residents : | 85,309 (November 2009) | |
Population density : | 2,162 inhabitants per km² | |
Time zone : | UTC + 8 (Chungyuan time) | |
Telephone code : | (+886) (0) 4 | |
Postal code : | 505 | |
ISO 3166-2 : | TW-CHA | |
Community type : | City municipality ( 鎮 , Zhèn ) | |
Structure : | 29 districts ( 里 , Lǐ ) | |
Mayor : | Wang Hui-Mei ( 王惠 美 ) | |
Website : | ||
|
Lukang ( Chinese 鹿港 鎮 , Pinyin Lùgǎng Zhèn , W.-G. Lu-kang Chen - "Deer Harbor ") is a township ( 鎮 , Zhèn ) with about 85,000 inhabitants in the district of Changhua in western Taiwan . It was one of the most important port cities on the island from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Today Lukang is best known for its historic old town with numerous temples.
location
Lukang is located in the northwest of Changhua County a good 10 km west of the county town of Changhua on Formosa Road . The Changhua Plain extends around the city .
history
In the 17th century, the Dutch who had occupied southwestern Taiwan used Lukang as an important export port. The name Lukang ("deer harbor") comes from the fact that deer skins were mainly shipped from there to Japan. Under the Qing Dynasty , the port of Lukang, one of Taiwan's best natural harbors on the Formosa Strait, became the main port for shipping between Taiwan and the Fujian province on the Chinese mainland from 1784 . Numerous mainland immigrants first set foot in Taiwan in Lukang.
The saying 一 府 、 二 鹿 、 三 艋舺 (first Fǔ, second Lù, third Méngjiă) comes from Lukang's heyday around 1800 , where F) (“capital”, “official seat”) for the then island capital Tainan , Lù for Lukang and Méngjiă stands for the core of today's island capital Taipei . Lukang was the second largest city in Taiwan after Tainan.
At the end of the 19th century, Lukang lost its importance when the port began to silt up. The railway line through western Taiwan, built at the beginning of the Japanese rule over Taiwan around 1900, ran further inland because the city of Lukang refused to build a railway on its territory. Likewise, the most important highways passed Lukang, so that the city was soon in the shadow of growing cities such as Taichung or Changhua .
Web links
- Internet presence of Lukang (English)
- Lukang at www.lonelyplanet.com (English)
- Information about the Longshan Temple Lukang (German)