Fort Zeelandia Audio Guide

Fort Zeelandia: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Fort Zeelandia

   Welcome to Fort Zeelandia, known locally as 安平古堡, in Anping District in the city of Tainan, on the southwest coast of Taiwan. Think of this place as a stack of chapters rather than a single building. Dutch merchant-soldiers, Koxinga's forces, Qing officials, Japanese-era customs officers and modern city planners have all left their marks here. The fort was first raised by the Dutch East India Company, and it is counted as the earliest fortress built in Taiwan. For a time it was the nerve center of Dutch rule on the island, and later of Ming Zheng rule. Today, the grounds combine surviving wall remains, a history memorial hall, a museum, a lookout tower and other historic traces, all run by the Tainan city government's cultural affairs bureau. As you walk, keep one question in mind: what exactly is original, and what was added later? The answer is more surprising than the fort's name suggests, and the next sections will take you through it layer by layer.

2. 02

   Fort Zeelandia: The Dutch Foundations

   Let us begin in the early seventeenth century. The Dutch East India Company, a company that blended trade with military force, occupied the Anping area in 1624 and built the fort as its defensive stronghold. A simple earlier fortification had been raised in October 1623, then torn down in April 1624. A proper fortress was rebuilt on the same ground that August, and the whole project was finished in 1634. The fort was first called Fort Oranje, then Fort Zeelandia, and over the centuries it picked up many other names, including Taiwan City, Anping Town City, King's City and Red-Haired Fort. It was the center of Dutch governance and, just as importantly, the hub of their overseas trade. The original plan had a square inner fort and a rectangular outer fort. Descriptions of the inner fort tell of three levels: a lower level sunk below ground for storage, with an ammunition magazine reached by a stairway on the north side, and two levels above. Bastions stood at the corners, and the north gate carried a stone inscription saying the castle was built in 1634. Imagine that stonework facing a very different coastline from the one you see today.

3. 03

   Fort Zeelandia: From King's City to Ruin

   The fort's story turned in 1662, when Koxinga took the Dutch fortress. He renamed the area Anping and turned the inner fort into his inner palace. That is why local people came to call the place Wang Cheng, the King's City. Then came the Qing era, and the fort's fortunes sank along with the sea. The Taijiang inland sea gradually silted up, and the political center moved to the walled prefecture city inside Tainan. Fort Zeelandia lost its strategic importance. Qing soldiers also damaged it, taking its red bricks as building material for the Eternal Golden Castle, and the old fortress slowly fell into neglect. By the Japanese colonial period, the Dutch-style buildings of the inner fort had been completely destroyed. In their place, a square brick-faced terrace was built and topped with a Western-style bungalow that served as customs officers' housing. That building became what is now the history memorial hall. After the Second World War, the site was renamed Anping Old Fort, the name most visitors still use.

4. 04

   Fort Zeelandia: Old Bricks, Banyan Roots and a Contested Tower

   Now look for the real Dutch-era survivor. It is the brick wall in front of the memorial hall, part of the outer fort's south wall, and more than 70 meters of it still stand. Banyan roots climb across the weathered red bricks, and the wall is the oldest visible fragment you can touch today. The tower is the site's most debated feature. The lookout rose from a Japanese-era watchtower and was rebuilt in 1975 as part of a tourism-year renovation program by the Tainan city government. A pointed red roof was added, the walls were painted white, and the result is the silhouette you see now. Critics at the time found it out of place, and some called it a blunder in historic restoration. In 1983, the head of the national cultural council even said it should come down, but it was not removed. The grounds also include a park opened in 1979 by the Tainan Lions Club, with reliefs on Koxinga's pioneering story and Chinese mythology. Official heritage protection came too: a monument declaration in 1983, another in 2004, and in 2022 the two were merged and renamed Zeelandia Fort Remains.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off from Fort Zeelandia

   Before you leave, take one more slow look around Fort Zeelandia and try to separate the layers. The old brick wall, the white tower with its pointed roof, the memorial hall that began as a customs residence and the park reliefs each belong to a different era, and each reflects a different idea of what this place should mean. It is also worth remembering that this fortress once looked out on the Taijiang inland sea, a shoreline that has since filled in with land. Let that picture change the way you read the landscape around you. The museum and the memorial hall inside the grounds are good places to carry the story further, and the surrounding streets of Anping have more of it waiting. Keep wandering with that question in mind: what else here was rebuilt, renamed or reimagined?