Why it looks like this

Taiwan's central city sits in the Taichung basin, protected from coastal winds by the Dadu plateau. Under Japanese rule the old settlement was rebuilt on modern lines: a compact grid around the 1917 railway station, canals straightened, parks inserted — a small showcase of colonial planning.

Postwar growth spilled far beyond it, and the city deliberately built itself a second centre — the 7th Redevelopment Zone of broad blocks, the opera house and city hall — so the map holds an old station grid and a planned new downtown a few kilometres apart.