Zhongzheng is the civic and political core of Taipei, the district that holds the institutions of the state and the grandest public spaces in the city. Named after Chiang Kai-shek (Zhongzheng was his formal name), it contains the seat of government, the main railway hub, and the monumental plazas where Taiwan's modern political history has played out — including the democracy protests of the late 1980s and 1990s.
The dominant landmark is the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, a vast white pavilion with a blue octagonal roof set at the head of Liberty Square, flanked by the matching National Theater and National Concert Hall. Nearby stand the Japanese-era Presidential Office Building, the red-brick colonial pile that still houses the head of state, and the 2-28 Peace Memorial Park with the National Taiwan Museum at its edge. Taipei Main Station, the convergence point of the metro, the high-speed rail, and the conventional railway, anchors the district's northern end and the warren of underground malls beneath it.
This is the Taipei of grand axes and ceremonial space rather than street life, but it rewards a morning's walk: the changing of the guard at the memorial hall, the museums around 2-28 Park, and the contrast between the imperial-scale monuments and the everyday bustle around the station.