Tainan has named 26 roads after sister cities across the world to deepen intercity relationships, but people have raised concerns that the names are hard to remember and lack connection to the local area.
Tainan has 64 sister or friend cities across the world, mostly in Japan, data on the Tainan City Government’s official Web site show.
The city has been promoting “road name diplomacy” since November 2024, naming roads after sister cities in Japan, the US, France, South Korea, Poland and Lithuania.
Photo: Liu Wan-chun, Taipei Times
There are seven such roads in Sinshih District (新市); five each in Yongkang (永康) and Annan (安南) districts; three each in the South (南) and Gueiren (歸仁) districts; two in Cigu District (七股) and one in Guantian District (官田).
The third phase of the Southern Taiwan Science Park would include roads named after Yamagata, Japan; Beziers, France; and Lodz, Poland.
The area around the park also has roads named after the Siraya indigenous people, such as Siraya Boulevard.
Road name diplomacy is usually carried out in newly established industrial zones or areas the city is replanning, Tainan Deputy Mayor Chiang Lin-huang (姜淋煌) said.
Roads are named after sister cities established during Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che’s (黃偉哲) term, prioritizing recently established ties to deepen intercity exchanges, Chiang said.
People have mostly been able to accept these road names, and the government selects smaller roads to reduce the impact on residents, he said.
Sister cities are overjoyed to see a road named after them when they visit, with some reciprocating by naming a road after Taiwan in their city, such as Tainan Street in Tsuchiura, Japan, he added.
However, some companies in the Southern Taiwan Science Park have voiced complaints, saying that the road names are irrelevant to the area and hard to remember, warning that they could make it difficult for visitors to find their way.
Roads could instead be named after the home cities of foreign companies in the park or named more logically according to surrounding roads or the local area, making directions easier to follow, a company in the park said.
Concerns have also been raised that the names of Polish and French cities would be hard to read, understand or remember for foreign visitors.
People have said that they have never heard of some of these foreign cities, making the road names hard to remember, Tainan City Councilor Chen Pi-yu (陳碧玉) said.
The sentiment of road name diplomacy is valuable, but for the public, it is most important that road names are easy to read and remember, Chen said.
Roads in new industrial zones and replanned areas are either named by the city government or the household registration office, in coordination with the local community, household registration official Lin Yueh-chin (林月琴) said.
Road names in Tainan are generally written in English using Tongyong pinyin, while roads named after cities would follow those cities’ official names in English, Lin said.
POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT: Japan and the US are expected to hold in-depth discussions on Taiwan-related issues during the meeting next month, Japanese sources said The holding of a Japan-US leaders’ meeting ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to China is positive news for Taiwan, former Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association representative Hiroyasu Izumi said yesterday. After the Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide victory in Japan’s House of Representatives election, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is scheduled to visit the US next month, where she is to meet with Trump ahead of the US president’s planned visit to China from March 31 to April 2 for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Japan and the US are expected to hold in-depth discussions on Taiwan-related issues during the
‘LIKE-MINDED PARTNER’: Tako van Popta said it would be inappropriate to delay signing the deal with Taiwan because of China, adding he would promote the issue Canadian senators have stressed Taiwan’s importance for international trade and expressed enthusiasm for ensuring the Taiwan-Canada trade cooperation framework agreement is implemented this year. Representative to Canada Harry Tseng (曾厚仁) in an interview with the Central News Agency (CNA) said he was increasingly uneasy about Ottawa’s delays in signing the agreement, especially as Ottawa has warmed toward Beijing. There are “no negotiations left. Not only [is it] initialed, we have three versions of the text ready: English, French and Mandarin,” Tseng said. “That tells you how close we are to the final signature.” Tseng said that he hoped Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday bestowed one of Taiwan’s highest honors on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) Ambassador Andrea Clare Bowman in recognition of her contributions to bilateral ties. “By conferring the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon on Ambassador Bowman today, I want to sincerely thank her, on behalf of the Taiwanese people, for her outstanding contribution to deepening diplomatic ties between Taiwan and SVG,” Lai said at a ceremony held at the Presidential Office in Taipei. He noted that Bowman became SVG’s first ambassador to Taiwan in 2019 and
A man walks past elementary school artworks at the Taipei Lantern Festival in Ximen District yesterday, the first day of the event. The festival is to run from 5pm to 10pm through March 15.
RSS