Taipei (all images)

Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, is a big city lying in a valley in the north of the Taiwan island. The city is arranged around a grid structure, with wide roads running from north to south and east to west. While it lacks an significant historic core (probably all old buildings were distroyed in WW II or simply torn down to make place for new buildings), in recent years Taipei has mutated into a modern and fashionable Asian metropolis. Prior to the arrival of Chinese settlers from Fujian in 1709 the Taipei area was settled by Ketagalan tribes. Taipei became the capital of Taiwan in 1886, initially as a provincial capital, then in 1894 as the official capital.