The New Taipei City Gold Museum (), formerly known as the Gold Ecological Park, is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

of the

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

mining industry in

Ruifang District Ruifang District () is a suburban district in eastern New Taipei City, Taiwan. History During Japanese rule, Ruifang was called , and was administered as part of of Taihoku Prefecture. Mining was an important industry in Ruifang (then kno ...

New Taipei New Taipei City is a Special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality located in northern Taiwan. The city is home to an estimated population of 3,974,683 as of 2022, making it the most populous city of Taiwan, and also the second largest s ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

History

The museum was opened on 4 November 2004 by the Taipei County Government as Gold Ecological Park (). After the formation of

New Taipei City New Taipei City is a special municipality located in northern Taiwan. The city is home to an estimated population of 3,974,683 as of 2022, making it the most populous city of Taiwan, and also the second largest special municipality by area, be ...

, the park was renamed Gold Museum, though as of December 2015, some signage still shows the old name, including the front entrance gate.

Architecture

The Gold Museum is an

open-air museum An open-air museum (or open air museum) is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts out-of-doors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum. Definition Open air is “the unconfined atmosphere� ...

consisting of several buildings and sites. The museum buildings used to be offices, dormitories, processing plants and other facilities of the Taiwan Metal Mining Corp. The Gold Museum includes the following: Gold Building, Experience the Benshan Fifth Tunnel, Crown Prince Chalet, Jin Shui Special Exhibition Hall, Gold Refining Building, and Four Joined Japanese-Style Residences.

Exhibitions

The Gold Building provides information about the discovery of gold in the area, with displays on the Benshan Tunnels, old mining equipment, mining transport systems and a brief introduction to the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Japanese Kinkaseki POW Camp on its first floor. The second floor introduces the properties of gold, with works of art made of gold and a world-record 220.30 kg 999.9 pure gold brick for visitors to see and touch. The Crown Prince Chalet is a residence built in 1922 for the proposed visit of Crown Prince Hirohito to the area (a visit that never materialized). Decades later it was used by Chiang Kai-shek as lodging in the area.

Transportation

The museum is accessible by bus from Ruifang Station of the Taiwan Railways.

References

External links