Tan-shui

Tan-shui, former municipality (shih, or shi), northern Taiwan. In 2010 it became a city district of the special municipality of New Taipei City, which had been created when the former T’ai-pei county was administratively reorganized. Tan-shui is located on the northern bank of the Tan-shui River at its mouth on the Taiwan Strait, about 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Taipei special municipality.

Tan-shui is the oldest of the port settlements in northern Taiwan. The area was occupied by the Spanish in the 1620s after they seized Chi-lung (Jilong, or Keelung) farther east. In 1642 the Spanish were driven out by the Dutch, and in 1662 the Dutch in their turn were expelled by Zheng Chenggong (Cheng Ch’eng-kung, or Koxinga), a man of mixed Chinese and Japanese ancestry who ruled the island for a time. The port was restored to Chinese control in 1683.

In the early 18th century, trade began with the interior of the island, and strong links were built up with the merchant communities in Fuzhou and Quanzhou in Fujian province on the Chinese mainland. In 1860 the port was opened to foreign trade as a treaty port. For the next few years Tan-shui became a centre of the growing Taiwan tea industry, founded by settlers from Fujian. That tea was shipped to Fuzhou and thence to Europe. By the end of the 19th century, Fuzhou was shipping more tea from Tan-shui than from Fujian itself.

Occupied by the French during the Sino-French War (1883–85), Tan-shui was further developed in the late 1880s, when a shipping route was opened from Tan-shui to Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The port declined, however, after a railway line was completed to the port of Chi-lung, as the Tan-shui estuary became increasingly silted. It is now a seaside resort for the Taipei region. Pop. (2015 est.) 162,221.