Xinyi is Taipei's most ambitious and cleanest neighbourhood: a planned grid of office towers, malls, hotels, and elevated walkways built largely from the 1990s onwards on land that until the late 20th century was farmland. Taipei 101 dominates the skyline; around its base spread the city's most luxurious shopping malls, including ATT 4 Fun, Breeze, and the Mitsukoshi cluster at Taipei City Hall MRT.
For most visitors Xinyi is the obvious base in Taipei: well-served by the MRT (Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 stations), with a generous helping of restaurants, the slick Eslite bookstore flagship at Songgao Road, and an easy walk to Elephant Mountain for the postcard photograph of 101 at sunset. The district is at its most spectacular after dark when the towers are floodlit.