Live cameras in Tainan, Taiwan

Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan and was its capital for more than two and a half centuries, until 1887. The Dutch built Fort Zeelandia on the coast in 1624 and Fort Provintia in 1653; Koxinga drove them out in 1662, and the city stayed the seat of government under the Kingdom of Tungning and the Qing dynasty. That long history shows everywhere: the Confucian Temple dates from 1665, and the municipality counts more than 1,600 registered temples, more than any other in Taiwan. Locals call it the Phoenix City. Today Tainan covers a large stretch of the southwestern plain and has about 1.86 million residents, from the dense old center to farming districts, salt flats and lagoons.

Freeways around the old capital

The feeds here come from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications through its TDX transport data platform, which carries the freeway and provincial highway cameras of the island. Around Tainan the main corridors are National Freeway 1, which passes the city on the east side with an interchange at Yongkang, National Freeway 3 farther inland, and National Freeway 8, which links the two. Our map assigns each camera to its nearest place, so the outlying districts such as Yujing have their own pages. Most images are still frames refreshed every few minutes, enough to see whether traffic is moving on the approaches.

The city uses Taiwan's single time zone, UTC plus eight, and never changes its clocks. Winters are mild and dry, with bright days and cool evenings, which makes November through March the most comfortable season; summers are hot and humid with heavy afternoon showers and the chance of typhoons. Light lasts until about a quarter to seven in June but fades soon after five in late December. The biggest crowds come at the Lantern Festival, when the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks in the north of the municipality draw visitors from all over Taiwan and the roads fill well into the night.

Anping, with its old fort and oyster shacks, sits on the coast west of the center, and the Chimei Museum lies in the southern district of Rende.

Sources: Tainan - Wikipedia · National Freeway 1 (Taiwan) - Wikipedia · National Freeway 3 (Taiwan) - Wikipedia.