Qieding District, Kaohsiung


Cieding District is a coastal suburban district in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Name and pronunciation

Etymology

One theory is that it is named for a type of local mangrove. Another is that it derived from a Makattao aboriginal name, written as "Cattia" or "Cattea" by Europeans, meaning "place of many fish". This was then rendered as Ka-tang-tiāⁿ-á and Ka-tiāⁿ-á in Taiwanese Hokkien and also Ka-tiāⁿ or Ka-têng with both sets of characters also referring to types of Avicennia.

Pronunciation and Romanization

Traditionally, the name is pronounced Ka-tiāⁿ in Taiwanese and Jiādìng in Mandarin. Following the 1945 handover of Taiwan, the name was romanized as Chiating via the Wade-Giles system. The later systems MPS II and Tongyong Pinyin yielded Jiading, which is seen on street signs and signs on the district office and the local elementary and junior high schools.
However outside of Jiading, the pronunciation of Ciédìng in Mandarin is common, using an alternate reading of the first Chinese character in the name. With the adoption of Hanyu Pinyin for Taiwanese place names in 2009, the name was officially rendered as Cieding by the Ministry of the Interior, but has not achieved uniform implementation. Buses from Kaohsiung and Tainan have the name Romanized with the non-standard "Chieding". The district's website uses several non-standard spellings including "Cieding", "Cheting", and "Chieting".

History

Empire of Japan

From 1920 to 1945, the district was governed under Konai village, Okayama District, Takao Prefecture.

Republic of China

After the handover of Taiwan from Japan to the Republic of China in 1945, Qieding was organized as a rural township of Kaohsiung County. On 25 December 2010, Kaohsiung County was merged with Kaohsiung City and Qieding was upgraded to a district of the city.

Administrative divisions

The district is part of Kaohsiung City Constituency II electoral district for Legislative Yuan.

Infrastructure