Taipei.

Taipei sits in a former lakebed in northern Taiwan, with the Keelung and Xindian rivers meeting along its western edge to form the Tamsui. The city began as a Qing administrative seat in the 1880s, was rebuilt on a Japanese grid, and has been the island's political and cultural centre since the mid-twentieth century. Its old quarters are compact: Dadaocheng on the river, Wanhua around Longshan Temple, and the broad avenues of the Japanese-era city between them.