Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan. The town was initially established by the Dutch East India Company as a ruling and trading base called Fort Zeelandia during the period of Dutch rule on Taiwan. After Dutch colonists were defeated by Koxinga in 1661; Tainan remained as the capital of the Tungning Kingdom until 1683 and afterwards the capital of Taiwan prefecture under the rule of the Qing Dynasty until 1887; when the new provincial capital was moved to Taipei.

Koxinga (Lord of the Imperial Surname) is the customary Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong; a Chinese military leader who was born in 1624 in Hirado; Japan to Chinese merchant/pirate Zheng Zhilong and his Japanese wife; and died in 1662 on the Island of Formosa (Taiwan).

A Ming loyalist and the chief commander of the Ming troops on the maritime front for the later emperors of the withering dynasty; Koxinga devoted the last 16 years of his life to resisting the conquest of China by the Manchus. Pictures From Asia David Henley