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Taixi Township or Taisi Township (Chinese: 台西鄉 or 臺西鄉; Hanyu Pinyin: Táixī Xiāng; Tongyong Pinyin: Táisi Siang; Wade–Giles: T'ai-hsi Hsiang), is a rural township in Yunlin County, Taiwan, lying to the west of Dongshi, south of Mailiao and north of Sihu, and including a section of coastline on the Taiwan Strait
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History
Taixi's coastal waters were traditionally used in oyster farming, but in 1991 they were zoned for offshore industrial use.
Demographics
As of December 2016, Taixi had 8,727 households and a total population of 24,212, including 11,244 females and 12,968 males.
Villages
The township comprises 15 villages: Fuqi, Gwanghua, Haibei, Haikou, Hainan, Hefeng, Niuxi, Quanzhou, Shanliao, Taixi, Wengang, Wugang, Wuxiang, Xiding and Yongfeng.
Notable Families
Up to 70 percent of the residents of Taixi are members of a Hui muslim family, surnamed Ting (Chinese: 丁; pinyin: Dīng; Wade–Giles: Ting1), descended from Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar. They trace their lineage to him via the Quanzhou Ting family of Fujian. Even as they were pretending to be Han chinese in Fujian, they still practiced Islam when they came to Taiwan 200 years ago, building a mosque, but eventually becoming Buddhist or Daoist. The mosque is now the Ding family's Daoist temple.
Transport
Sights
The Taixi Maritime themed park built in 1992 by the Yunlin County Government covers 121 Hectares and is a main contributor to the local economy. The park is primarily wetlands and is host to a variety of wildlife and flora including intertidal animals, such as fiddler crabs, mudskippers, sea cockroaches, egrets, herons, other migratory birds, cacti, mangroves and others.
Representation of Taixi in the media
In 1982, a novel was published telling the story of a young Taixi man who escaped prison and went on a killing spree in Taiwan. Although this was fiction, it had a large impact on the way other Taiwanese people perceive its villagers to this day.