Pingtung

About Pingtung

Pingtung City is a county-administered city and the county seat of Pingtung County, Taiwan.

The area of modern-day Pingtung City was originally a village of the Taiwanese Plains Aborigines which they called "Akau", which means "the forest". After the expulsion of the Dutch, the village grew into a Chinese market-town called "A-kau".

In 1901, during the Japanese era, Akō Chō was one of twenty local administrative offices established. In 1909, this unit was merged with Banshoryō Chō (蕃薯寮廳) and Kōshun Chō (恆春廳) to form Akō Chō (阿緱廳). Beginning in 1920, the name was changed to Heitō Town (屏東街), governed under Takao Prefecture. In 1933, the town was upgraded to City status.

After the handover of Taiwan to the Republic of China from Japan on 25 October 1945, Pingtung City was established as a provincial city of Taiwan Province in December the same year. On 1 December 1951, it was downgraded to a county-administered city of Pingtung County and has been administered as such since that time.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.