Dadaocheng & Dihua Street

Dadaocheng is Taipei's oldest commercial district — a neighbourhood of Baroque and Art Deco shophouses along Dihua Street that has been the centre of Taipei's tea, fabric, and dried goods trade since the 1850s. The street, running about a kilometre through the Datong district, contains the best-preserved collection of early 20th-century commercial architecture in Taipei, with ornate facades that blend Chinese, Japanese, and European decorative elements.

Dihua Street is where Taipei shops for Chinese New Year — the dried goods shops (selling dried mushrooms, scallops, abalone, Chinese sausage, and the ingredients for New Year feasts) operate year-round but reach peak activity in the weeks before the holiday, when the street transforms into a corridor of commerce that is the most intensely traditional shopping experience in the city. The fabric merchants, traditional Chinese medicine shops, and the tea houses that have been operating since the Japanese colonial era give Dihua Street a historical depth that modern Taipei's shopping malls can't replicate.

The neighbourhood has been revitalised in recent years — converted shophouses now house specialty coffee shops, craft studios, and the Taipei Story House (a half-timbered building from 1914 that mixes Japanese and English Arts and Crafts styles). The weekend Yongle Market on the street's southern end sells fabric, tailoring services, and the Taiwanese street food that accompanies every market experience in the country.