Taipei Wanhua: Ximending, Bopiliao and Longshan Temple
An outdoor walk through Taipei's Wanhua district, excluding building interiors. It runs from the pedestrian streets of Ximending to a Mazu temple, the Red House market, the ruins of Nishi Hongan-ji, three Mengjia temples, the Qing-era lane of Bopiliao and a 1935 horseshoe market. Nine stops, about 70 minutes.
This is a self-guided walk, not a guided tour with a leader: no booking, no fixed start time. See the walking route and the walking map before you go, then follow the numbers — the audio guide plays by itself as you reach each stop. Free, with no app to install and no sign-up.
At ~70 min it fits a half day of independent travel, and joining it to another walk in Taipei makes a full-day itinerary.
Nearby walks within 150 km
- Tamsui Old Street and Fort San Domingo: River, Trade and Missions — 9 stops, ~60 min
- Jiufen Gold Rush & Lanterns Walking Tour — 5 stops, ~31 min
All Taiwan walking tours · All 163 routes
Taipei, Taiwan · ~70 min · 2.9 km · 9 stops
Stops on this walk
1. Ximending Pedestrian Zone 西門町
Named after a city gate that no longer exists, this was Taipei's cinema street long before it became a youth-culture hub.
Stop at the edge of the pedestrian area and look along the street. Cinemas, shoe shops, snack stalls and big video screens line a street with no traffic lanes. This crossing of Emei Street and Hanzhong Street is the heart of Ximending. The name means the West Gate district. In the Qing era Taipei was a walled city, and its west gate stood just east of here. Under Japanese rule the walls came down. The west gate was the only one of the city's gates to be demolished, in the early 1900s. The land outside the gate lay between the walled city and the old river port of Mengjia. The Taiwan Tourism Administration explains that residents of the walled city came out here for their leisure. A first theatre opened in the 1890s, and in 1922 the area was formally named Seimon-cho, which is Ximending in Mandarin. Early on, cinemas were the main business here. After 1949, when the Nationalist government moved to Taiwan, money poured in. Department stores and entertainment halls joined the cinemas, and for decades this was a busy shopping and entertainment district. In the 1990s the crowds moved east to newer districts, and Ximending went quiet for a while. It came back with the metro line, a redesigned Zhonghua Road, and the conversion of these streets into a pedestrian zone. Today it is a centre of youth culture and street performance.
The streets can be very crowded in the evening and at weekends. Keep bags in front of you, and step to the side before stopping to check your phone.
2. Taipei Tianhou Temple
A Mazu temple from old Mengjia that moved into a Japanese Shingon temple in 1948, and still honours its Japanese founder saint.
Look at the narrow temple front squeezed between the shop buildings on Chengdu Road. Red lanterns hang over the entrance, and a carved roof rises above the street. This is the Taipei Tianhou Temple, dedicated to Mazu, the sea goddess of sailors and fishing families. The congregation is older than this site. The Qing-era Tamsui Gazetteer records a Mazu temple in old Mengjia built in 1746. Inside, Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon, is honoured next to the Taiwanese gods.
Entry is free. This is an active temple. Speak quietly, do not walk in front of people praying, and ask before photographing worshippers.
3. The Red House 西門紅樓
An eight-sided brick market hall of 1908 that became a theatre, a cinema and now a cultural venue.
Look at the red brick building with eight sides in front of you. Bands of grey artificial stone run across the brick, and a small gable crowns the front. This octagon is the entrance of the Red House. The long cross-shaped hall behind it was the market floor. It opened in 1908 as a public market, designed by Kondo Juro of the colonial government's building section. The heritage register calls it one of the first public markets in Taipei, built mainly for Japanese residents. The Red House's own history says the land outside the west gate was once scattered with graves. The plan is unusual, an octagon joined to a cross. The Taiwan Tourism Administration explains the eight sides as a shape that gathers people from every direction. The walls are load-bearing brick in English bond. Inside the octagon the roof rests on a steel truss that fans out like the ribs of an umbrella, joined with rivets. The register lists what the market sold, flowers, books, medicine, Japanese pickles and Taiwanese produce. After 1945 the octagon became a stage for opera and storytelling, and later a cinema. The cinema closed in 1997, the year the building was listed as a monument. A fire in 2000 damaged the cross-shaped hall, which was later restored. Since 2007 the Taipei Culture Foundation has run it as a venue for performances, exhibitions and design shops. If the octagon is open, step inside and look up at the roof.
The plaza outside is open to all. The building, its shops and its stage keep their own hours and may be closed on some days, so check before you plan to go in.
4. Nishi Hongan-ji Square
A bell tower and a bare stone platform are what remain of the largest Japanese Buddhist temple in colonial Taiwan.
Look at the wooden bell tower on its grassy mound, and the wide stone platform beside it. These are remains of Nishi Hongan-ji. The heritage register calls it the largest Japanese-style Buddhist temple in Taiwan in its day. It was the Taiwan branch of the Honganji school of Jodo Shinshu, a school of Pure Land Buddhism. A meeting hall called Jushin Kaikan was finished in 1923. A residence for the head priest followed in 1924. The great main hall was built in 1930 and 1931. A wooden hall about thirty four metres wide and twenty three metres high stood on a reinforced concrete base. The platform in front of you is that base. The stone approach that led up to it, about four and a half metres wide and thirty five metres long, still runs across the square. After 1945 the Japanese left. The register records that the military and a religious association used the buildings. Evacuees from the Dachen Islands and migrants from central and southern Taiwan built homes in the compound. In 1975 a fire destroyed the wooden main hall, and only the base survived. The city listed the bell tower and the meeting hall as monuments in 2006, and the other remains as historic buildings. After restoration the square opened to the public in 2013.
The square is a free public park. Some of the old buildings have new uses with their own opening hours.
5. Mengjia Qingshui Temple
The Anxi settlers' temple of 1787, burned in the 1853 battle over Mengjia's wharves and rebuilt in 1867.
Look across the small square to the temple at its end, with its stone front and curved roof ridge. This is Mengjia Qingshui Temple, known locally as the Zushi Temple. It honours Master Qingshui, a monk revered as a protector by settlers from Anxi county in Fujian. The Anxi people brought him with them. In 1787 they built this temple, bringing his image from the mother temple in their home county. The heritage register notes that Anxi settlers opened up much of the farmland around the Taipei basin. Then came 1853. Mengjia was by then the economic centre of northern Taiwan, and settler groups fought over control of its wharves. The fight is remembered as the Ding-Xia battle. Settlers from three counties of Quanzhou, known as the Sanyi, attacked their rivals from Tong'an county. The defeated Tong'an families fled north to Dadaocheng. This temple was destroyed in the fighting. It was rebuilt in 1867, and much of what stands today dates from that rebuilding. The register points to its layout, two halls and two corridors joined to two long side wings. A rear hall once held Mazu, but it burned and was never rebuilt. Taiwan's Ministry of the Interior recounts a tradition that Master Qingshui protected Taipei during the 1884 war. Under Japanese rule the temple was used as a school, a forerunner of today's Chenggong High School.
Entry is free and it is an active temple. Move quietly around people praying, and do not touch the offerings on the altar tables.
6. Mengjia Qingshan Temple
A god brought across the strait to stop a plague in 1854, on the street where Mengjia began.
Look at the temple front on the south side of Guiyang Street, with its carved stone doorway and dragon columns. This is Mengjia Qingshan Temple. It honours King Qingshan, a guardian god from Hui'an county in Fujian. The street itself is part of the story. Guiyang Street follows the old Sweet Potato Market Street, where indigenous people of the basin traded sweet potatoes with Han settlers. The heritage register calls that market the beginning of the town of Mengjia. The temple begins with an epidemic. In 1853 Mengjia had been torn apart by fighting between settler groups, and in 1854 a plague broke out. Settlers from Hui'an brought their god's image from the Qingshan temple in their home county. When the plague eased, believers credited the god and decided he should stay. Work on this temple began in 1856 and was finished in 1859. The Taiwan Tourism Administration retells a local tradition about the move. As the image was carried along an old street nearby, it suddenly could not be lifted. Divination blocks told the bearers that the god wished to stay in Mengjia. The register names the god as Zhang Gun. His birthday falls on the twenty third day of the tenth lunar month. In the nights before it his procession tours the district. Wanhua District Office counts it among Taipei's three great temple festivals. If you enter the front hall, look up at its octagonal coffered ceiling.
Entry is free and it is an active temple. During the festival in the tenth lunar month the street fills with processions and crowds, so allow extra time if you come then.
7. Longshan Temple 艋舺龍山寺
Mengjia's great temple of 1738, rebuilt after earthquakes and an air raid, where the Guanyin statue survived the fire of 1945.
Look across the square at the front hall of Longshan Temple. Its roof ridges are crowded with dragons and figures in coloured ceramic. This is the best known temple in Taipei, and a national monument. It was founded in 1738 by settlers from three Quanzhou counties, Jinjiang, Hui'an and Nan'an. They brought Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, from the Longshan Temple of Anhai in their homeland. The temple's own account repeats an old tradition. A settler hung a pouch holding Guanyin's incense on a tree, it was seen glowing in the dark, and so the temple was built. It was completed in 1740. It was never only a place of prayer. The heritage register calls it the place where the Sanyi settlers met to decide the affairs of Mengjia. It also witnessed the fighting over the wharves in 1853. Earthquakes and typhoons have damaged it again and again. An earthquake in 1815 left little standing but the altar. What you see is mostly the rebuilding of 1919 to the 1920s, led by the Fujian master builder Wang Yishun. If you walk up to the front hall, look for its bronze dragon columns. The tourism administration dates them to 1918 and calls them the only ones of their kind in Taiwan. In 1945 an Allied air raid struck the temple. The temple's history says it was mistaken for the colonial government headquarters. Incendiary bombs burned the main hall and the east corridor, but the statue of Guanyin was unharmed. The main hall was rebuilt between 1955 and 1959. Beside Guanyin, the halls hold Mazu, Guan Yu, the god of literature and the matchmaker god, among many others.
Entry is free. The tourism administration notes that the central door opens only on festival days, so visitors usually enter by the left door and leave by the right. People pray in the courtyard, so walk around them, not between them and the altar.
8. Bopiliao Historic Block 剝皮寮
A Qing-era street that survived because a school plan froze it in 1941, then nearly vanished in 1999.
Look along this lane. Low brick shophouses line both sides, many with covered walkways in front. This is Bopiliao, one of the very few streets in Taipei that still keeps its Qing dynasty street plan. The site's official guide says older forms of the name are said to appear in Qing-period land deeds. It was written several ways over the years. The origin of the name is uncertain. Today the name sounds like peeling skin. The site's official guide offers sound change from an older name as one explanation. The houses show how the street changed. The heritage register describes Qing-era shophouses of one to three storeys, and arcaded fronts added after the Japanese street improvements. When new roads were cut through in that period, this old main street was left behind as a back lane. What saved it was a school plan. Under Japanese rule the government reserved the block for an expansion of Laosong Elementary School next door, so owners could no longer rebuild. In 1999 the residents moved out. The west side reopened after restoration in 2009, and in 2010 the block was registered as historic buildings. The tourism administration lists the old businesses whose buildings survive here. Among them are a rice shop, a ship trader's office, a bookbindery, a public bathhouse and two teahouses.
The lane is open to walk through. Exhibition rooms in some houses keep their own hours and may be closed on some days.
9. Xinfu Market
A horseshoe-shaped market hall of 1935, now a cultural space, with the working market still busy in the lane outside.
Look at the low, pale market building with the rounded front. It dates from 1935, and its plan is shaped like a horseshoe. This is the old Xinfu Market, now called the Xinfu-cho Culture Market, or U-mkt. It opened in June 1935 as the food retail market of Shintomi-cho, as the district was then called. The heritage register explains what makes it special. The horseshoe plan wraps around an open light well in the middle. Shoppers could walk a full circle indoors, with daylight and fresh air coming from above. The decorative lines on the outside are in the Art Deco style, which the register calls an avant-garde choice for its time. A wooden office and living quarters for the market staff were built alongside, and they survive too. The heritage register records original wooden stalls with numbered name plates, as well as an old safe in the office. After restoration, it reopened in 2017 as a cultural space run by a private foundation, with exhibitions about market life and a café. The market itself did not disappear. Stallholders from the old hall moved into the lane outside, Sanshui Street, where the market sells fresh food, cooked food and household goods. So this is two markets in one place. The protected building shows how a Taipei neighbourhood shopped in the 1930s. The covered lane around you shows how it shops now.
The protected building has its own opening hours and closing days. The lane outside is a working market. Keep to the side when carts and shoppers pass, and ask before photographing stallholders. Longshan Temple metro station is about five minutes' walk west.