History
Modern-day Pingtung County and Kaohsiung City were part of Wan-nien Province (萬年州) during the Kingdom of Tungning and Fengshan Prefecture in the Qing Dynasty. Pingtung County is a recently-developed county. Its largest city is Pingtung City. The name Pingtung refers to a former nearby mountain known as Half-Screen Mountain (半屏山). Pingtung means "East of Half-Screen Mountain."
Until the seventeenth century this area of Taiwan was a place of exile for Chinese criminals and occasional landing point for international mariners. Only the settlements near present-day Checheng Township existed. In 1664 Chinese, Cantonese and Hakka settlers arrived from China and farmed under a homesteading system introduced by Zheng Jing.
Pingtung City, the biggest city in Pingtung County, also known as "A-Kau" (阿猴 Pe̍h-ōe-jī: A-kâu), was the home of Pingpu Aboriginals. In their language, "A-kau" means "the forest".
The first settlements by Han people were not established until 1684 (the 23rd year of Kangxi) with the creation of villages near Pingtung by people from China's southern Fujian region. By 1734 most of the Pingtung plain was cultivated and in 1764 Pingtung was expanded. In 1836 the government and locals worked together to build the four walls of the city (the North gate, the East gate, the West gate and the South gate), and the roads were also properly finished. (Translated from the website of Cultural Affairs Bureau of Pingtung County)
Under Japanese rule (1895-1945) the Pingtung area became a favourite spot for relaxation.
Pingtung was the site of an 7.1 magnitude earthquake on 26 December 2006. In 2009, Pingtung received rainfall in excess of 2,500 millimetres (98 in); breaking all rainfall records of any single place in Taiwan induced by a single typhoon.
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