Zhongshan is the commercial neighbourhood that runs north from the Taipei Main Station along Zhongshan North Road, the original imperial Japanese boulevard of the city. The lower section retains a number of Japanese-era buildings — the Taipei Film House (formerly the US Embassy), the 1916 Taipei Confucius Temple, the 1937 Zhongshan Hall — alongside the older Japanese-style department stores Mitsukoshi and Daimaru.
It is also Taipei's small Japanese expatriate quarter, with the highest density of Japanese restaurants, bars and izakayas in the city. The street around Zhongshan MRT (the Eslite-managed Linsen North Road area, and the small Walking Stick Park beside it) has been pleasantly remade as a shopping and dining destination over the last decade.