The Anping Tree House () is a former warehouse in

Anping District Anping District is a District (Taiwan), district of Tainan, Taiwan. In March 2012, it was named one of the ''Top 10 Small Tourist Towns'' by the Tourism Bureau of Taiwan. It is home to 64,408 people according to the 2020 census. Name The ...

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a Special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality in southern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and commonly called the "Taiwan Prefecture, ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. The "treehouse" name refers to the living

banyan A banyan, also spelled banian ( ), is a fig that develops accessory trunks from adjacent prop roots, allowing the tree to spread outwards indefinitely. This distinguishes banyans from other trees with a strangler habit that begin life as ...

roots and branches that cover the building.

History

Qing Dynasty

After the

Qing government The Qing dynasty (1644–1912) was the last imperial dynasty of China. The early Qing emperors adopted the bureaucratic structures and institutions from the preceding Ming dynasty but split rule between the Han and Manchus with some positions als ...

signed the

Treaty of Tientsin The Treaty of Tientsin, also known as the Treaty of Tianjin, is a collective name for several Unequal treaty, unequal treaties signed at Tianjin (then Postal Map Romanization, romanized as Tientsin) in June 1858. The Qing Empire, Qing dynasty, ...

in June 1858, Anping was one of the harbors in

which was opened to international trade. Trading company Tait & Company constructed a merchant house in 1867 as well as a

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the rural–urban fringe, out ...

. The company was involved in the export of granulated

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

and

camphor Camphor () is a waxy, colorless solid with a strong aroma. It is classified as a terpenoid and a cyclic ketone. It is found in the wood of the camphor laurel (''Cinnamomum camphora''), a large evergreen tree found in East Asia; and in the kapu ...

. Before those goods were loaded into transport ships, they were stored inside the warehouse.

Empire of Japan

After the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

came to Taiwan in 1895, they made the trading of

and

opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...

a government business and left foreign merchants out of business and had to leave Taiwan, including Tait & Company. In 1911, the merchant house and the warehouse were turned into the office and warehouse of Japan Salt Company. Once the warehouse was abandoned, the banyan tree around it started to spread its branches and roots around the building.

Republic of China

After the handover of Taiwan from Japan to the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

in 1945, the warehouse became the office for the Tainan Salt Works (). The building underwent renovation in 1981 to modernize the building. In 2004, the

Tainan City Government The Tainan City Government () is the municipal government of Tainan, Taiwan. It was formed after the merger of Tainan County and Tainan City in December 2010. Its chief administrator is the directly elected Mayor of Tainan. Administration ...

invited designers to transform the warehouse into tourist object. They then built wood and metal staircases and viewing platforms for visitors to view the whole area. The warehouse was finally opened to the public in 2004 as the Anping Tree House as part of the National Anping Harbor Historic Park.

Architecture

The tree house features a

skyway A skyway, skybridge, skywalk, or sky walkway is an elevated type of pedway connecting two or more buildings in an urban area, or connecting elevated points within mountainous recreational zones. Urban skyways very often take the form of Cover ...

above it for visitors to move around. It is covered by dense roots as its rooftop.

Transportation

The tree house is accessible by bus from

Tainan Station Tainan () is a railway station in Tainan, Taiwan served by Taiwan Railways Administration. Situated in centre of the old town square in the East District of Tainan, Tainan Station is the main station of the city and also one of the major stati ...

of Taiwan Railways.

References

{{commons category 2004 establishments in Taiwan Buildings and structures in Tainan Tourist attractions in Tainan Warehouses in Taiwan