Kaohsiung retains the largest number of dependents’ villages in Taiwan, with more than 1,300 dependents’ homes covering an area of over 80 hectares, and a carnival is held for three consecutive weeks.

Taipei was originally the city with the most military dependents' villages in Taiwan, but Kaohsiung is the city with the most preserved military dependents' villages in Taiwan, with a total of more than 80 hectares and more than 1,300 military dependents' houses preserved.

The 2026 Kaohsiung Military Village Carnival will be held for three consecutive weeks starting this week. On September 26 and 27, it will be held in Fengshan Huangpu New Village, the first military military village in Taiwan. On October 3 and 4, it will be held in the newly restored and opened Gangshan Xing Village and Lequn Village. On October 10 and 11, it will be held in Zuoying Jianye New Village, covering the land, air and sea military dependent villages.

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The Facebook community Kaohsiung is better off explains that Kaohsiung was an important fortress city during the Japanese occupation. After the Kuomintang government moved to Taiwan, the army, navy and air force academies and bases were all located in Kaohsiung, thus establishing a large number of military dependents villages.

After the merger of counties and cities in 2010, the Kaohsiung City Government believed that military culture and immigration history constituted an important part of Kaohsiung's development. Therefore, it actively pursued a cultural asset strategy to preserve the military dependents' villages to prevent these lands from being sold off or rebuilt. As a result, Kaohsiung retained a total of more than 80 hectares and more than 1,300 dependents' homes, and invested more than 1.5 billion yuan in maintenance and repairs, ranking first in the country.

Due to the large reserved area, the city government has to face huge maintenance costs. Therefore, in 2013, it initiated the "housing in lieu of care" policy, allowing the private sector to apply for repairs and maintenance. From the early residential type, to "housing in lieu of care 2.0" that combines B&B and cultural creativity, and in recent years, "housing in lieu of care 3.0·Cultural and Creative Clusters" and "Youth Entrepreneurship HOUSE" have been developed for young entrepreneurs and workers.

Over the past 10 years, Fengshan Huangpu and Zuoying Construction have formed a cultural and creative, youth entrepreneurship and tourism development base, gradually forming an organic folk cultural settlement, and most of the family homes in this area have been renovated.

Haokori believes that Taiwan retains and presents the diverse histories of different ethnic groups as part of national development. This is the biggest difference between the "illusory unified mainland country" and the "diversified island emerging country". It is also the main reason why in recent years, resources have been expended to preserve the culture, history and memories of military villages.