Pingtung County
Pingtung County (Chinese: 屏東縣; pinyin: Píngdōng Xiàn) is a county in Southern Taiwan. It contains the oldest and the largest national park in Taiwan, Kenting National Park, established in Pingtung County in 1984. Pingtung City is the capital of the county.
Name
The name Pingtung refers to a former nearby mountain known as Half-Screen Mountain (半屏山). Pingtung means "East of Half-Screen Mountain."
History
Modern-day Pingtung County and Kaohsiung City were part of Wan-nien Province (萬年州; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Bān-liân-chiu) during the Kingdom of Tungning (1661–1683) and Hongsoa Prefecture (鳳山縣; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hōng-soaⁿ) during Qing dynasty rule (1683–1895). Pingtung County is a recently developed county. Its largest city is Pingtung City.
Until the seventeenth century this area of Taiwan was a place of exile for Chinese criminals and occasional landing point for international mariners. Only the settlements near present-day Checheng Township existed. In 1664 Han Chinese, Cantonese and Hakka settlers arrived from mainland China and farmed under a homesteading system introduced by Zheng Jing.