Ask how a district began and you usually get a story of pioneering and prosperity. Dadaocheng is different. This street began where people pushed out of a fight finally came to rest.
A clash over the wharf
In 1853 a factional clash known as Ding-Xia Jiao Pin broke out in what is now Wanhua Fact. The Three-Prefecture Quanzhou group, who had arrived earlier and controlled the wharf, levied charges on passing merchant ships, squeezing the commercial interests of the Tong-an merchants and building up conflict Fact. Differences of religious allegiance compounded it, and it erupted into one of the largest clashes in the history of west Taipei Fact.
A migration refused twice
The losing side did not move once but twice. They first headed north to Dalongtong but were not accepted by the settlers there, then came down along the Tamsui River and took a place at Dadaocheng Fact. There they built temples, opened markets, and entered cross-strait trade Fact. The riverbank condition was decisive — it was land where boats could dock Estimate.
Three shops that came first
Dadaocheng was not entirely empty land, though. In 1851 the merchant Lin Lantian moved here from Keelung to escape pirates and built three southern-style shops, remembered as the first storefronts in Dadaocheng Fact. So the mass migration of 1853 landed on a seed planted in 1851, and the trade district exploded from there Estimate.
The shape defeat left
That layer survives in the shape of the street. Dadaocheng was organised toward the river from the start — goods came off the wharf and were pushed inward, which is why the shophouses of Dihua Street are narrow and drive deep inward in plan (Ep.4) Estimate. The condition the displaced accepted became the grammar of the street.