This part of the city has a fairly long history, at least by Taipei standards. There are a lot of historic sites in a small area. It's also been changing a lot over the past couple of years, and will continue to do so (the Zhongxiao Bridge elevated highway has been demolished and a lot of buildings are being renovated). I'll probably come back and update this after the museums in the TRA HQ and the post office are open. I'm going to go through each of the existing sites chronologically from the Qing Dynasty to the modern era where I can. They are all located within a few minutes walk of each other.

North Gate (北門) and the Old Walled City.

In the very early days Taipei it was not a single unified city. Rather, it was a number of scattered settlements. These were mostly separated along Han Chinese clan lines or were indigenous settlements. When immigration rates from China increased in the 18th and 19th centuries most immigrants settled with people who had moved from the same province or city. A lot of people from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou settled in Wanhua. After a conflict between different groups of migrants in 1853 many moved to Dadaocheng. People from these two settlements (and other groups) continued to be hostile to each other, and there were frequent small battles.