Taitung City  Taitung City (Mandarin pinyin: "Táidōng Shì"; Hokkien POJ: "Tâi-tang-chhī") is a county-administered city and the county seat of Taitung County, Taiwan. It lies on the southeast coast of Taiwan facing the Pacific Ocean. Taitung City is the most populous subdivision of Taitung County and it is one of the major cities on the east coast of the island. Due to the Central Mountain Range of Taiwan, ground transportation to Taitung City is very limited. The city is served by Taitung Airport. Taitung is a gateway to Green Island and Orchid Island, both of which are popular tourist destinations. Before the 16th century the Taitung plain was settled by agriculturalist Puyuma and Amis aboriginal tribes. Under Dutch rule and during Qing rule, a large part of eastern Taiwan, including today's Taitung, was called "Pi-lam" (). Many artifacts of the prehistory sites of the city are located at Beinan Cultural Park, which was discovered in 1980 during the construction of Taitung Station. In the late 19th century, when Liu Mingchuan was the Qing Governor of Taiwan, Han Chinese settlers moved into the Taitung region. Pi-lam Subprefecture () was established in 1875, and was upgraded and renamed to Taitung Prefecture in 1888, after the island was made Fujian-Taiwan Province. During Japanese rule, the central settlement was called . was one of twenty local administrative offices established in 1901. English-language works from the era refer to the place as "Pinan" (from Japanese) and "Pilam" (from Hokkien). Taitō Town was established in 1920 under Taitō Prefecture, and included modern Taitung City and eastern Beinan Township. There were no Americans living here during the Japanese rule. After handover of Taiwan from Japan to the ROC in 1945, it became Taitung Township and in 1976 it was promoted to Taitung City. Taitung City government is headquartered at Taitung City Hall which takes the responsibility for the city general administration and all of its other affairs, from folk, education, cultural popularization, negotiation, emergency help, disaster prevention, environmental taxation, cleaning control, finance, public property control, tellership, taxing help, farming and fishing control, wholesale products, marketing and business administration, urban planning, public establishment, tourism, community development, army service administration, welfare, national health insurance program and indigenous administration affairs.