Tainan City Sights

  1. Altar of Heaven Temple

    Have you had a run of bad luck lately? Then visit the Altar of Heaven Temple and pray to the supreme Taoist entity, the Jade Emperor (or Lord of Heaven), to help you out. Tainan families have been doing this for generations on the 1st and 15th of every month.

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  2. Anping Matsu Temple

    The Anping Matsu Temple is yet another of the 'first' Matsu temples in Taiwan. But it does genuinely feature what many believe to be the oldest Matsu statue. It's not the one you think (the biggest one in the back shrine), however, but the middle one on the second row of smaller Matsu statues.

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  3. City God Temple

    The city god tallies our good and bad deeds in this life after we die. Hence it is not unusual that his image appears in the Dongyue Temple, dedicated to underworld, nor that these two temples are very close to each other.

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  4. Confucius Temple

    You expect a Confucius Temple to exude the calm, grace and dignified beauty of traditional Chinese culture, and this, the first Confucian temple in Taiwan, doesn't disappoint. Nor do the grounds, which contain one of the largest and most beautiful banyan trees in all of Taiwan.

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  5. Dongyue Temple

    People often come to the Dongyue Temple to communicate with the dead through spiritual mediums. It's a fascinating place to catch a glimpse of Taiwanese folk culture. In addition, the grim murals on the walls of the second chamber are as graphic as the depictions of hell by Hieronymus Bosch: there are disembowelments, eye gougings, stabbings, boilings and so much more.

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  7. God of War Temple

    This is the oldest and most impressive temple in Taiwan dedicated to Kuan Kung, a Han dynasty general deified as the war god.

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  8. Lady Linshui's Temple

    The elaborate design and excessive ornamentation of Lady Linshui's Temple would clue most traditionally minded Chinese into the fact that it is dedicated to a woman - in this case, Lady Linshui.

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  9. Matsu Temple

    The lively Matsu Temple once served as the palace of Ning Jin, the last king of the Ming dynasty. If you wish to confirm visually that a king's status is lower than an emperor's, count the steps to the shrine. There are only seven; an emperor would get nine.

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  10. Wufei Temple

    When Koxinga's grandson surrendered to the Manchus in 1683, all hope of restoring the Ming dynasty ended. King Ning Jin, the last contender for the Ming throne, knew his time was up. Before he committed suicide, however, he urged his concubines to 'get thee to a nunnery'. The concubines refused, claiming their honour was as important as the king's, and hanged themselves on a roof beam in the bedroom of his palace. The palace is now the shrine to Matsu's parents at the Matsu Temple and the beam is still in place.

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