The Anping Tree House () is a former warehouse in

Anping District Anping District is a 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 67,263 people. Name The older place name of Tayouan derives from the et ...

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and also commonly known as the "Capital City" for its over 200 years of hi ...

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 northe ...

. The "treehouse" name refers to the living

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

roots and branches that cover the building.

History

Qing Dynasty

After the

Qing government The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

signed the

Treaty of Tientsin The Treaty of Tientsin, also known as the Treaty of Tianjin, is a collective name for several documents signed at Tianjin (then romanized as Tientsin) in June 1858. The Qing dynasty, Russian Empire, Second French Empire, United Kingdom, and t ...

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 outskirts of cities, ...

. The company was involved in the export of granulated sugar 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 k ...

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

Empire of Japan

After the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent for ...

came to Taiwan in 1895, they made the trading of

and

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy '' Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which ...

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, 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 northea ...

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 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 encl ...

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 of Tainan, Tainan Station is the main station of the city and also one of the major stations along the western ...

of Taiwan Railways.

References

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