Kinmen Wudao City God Temple
Main Deities
About
Every year on the twelfth day of the fourth lunar month, the whole island of Kinmen erupts in a grand island-wide parade — art-floats and performance troupes stretching endlessly down the roads. This is the 'Kinmen City God Welcoming,' ranked among 'Taiwan's Hundred Religious Sceneries.' Its star is the Wudao City God Temple, the largest and most incense-thronged temple in Kinmen, dedicated to the City God (Chenghuang) and the island's most important center of faith. Built in a three-bay, two-hall layout beneath an imposing hip-and-gable double-eaved roof, the temple carries a long memory: the day's revelry commemorates the year 1680, when the Kinmen garrison commander Chen Long moved the administrative seat from Kinmen City to Houpu — and the City God moved with him, an incense fire now more than three hundred years old.
History
The temple's origins reach back to 1387, when Zhou Dexing, Marquis of Jiangxia, built the walled garrison at Kinmen City and raised the Gudi City God Temple alongside it. In 1663 the Qing coastal-evacuation policy left the existing City God temple at Houpu in ruins. Not until 1680 did Chen Long, the first Kinmen garrison commander, move the administrative seat to Houpu and branch the Gudi City God to the Ximen ward there — laying the foundation of the Wudao City God Temple. In 1811, Wen Yingju and others raised over 2,300 taels of silver to rebuild it, and a further expansion in 1994 brought it to its present scale. Through all this migration and rebuilding, the bond between the City God and the town of Houpu has endured for more than three hundred years.
Kinmen Wudao City God Temple
Jincheng Township, Kinmen County
Visitor Info
Address
No. 40, Guangqian Rd, Jincheng Township, Kinmen County
Region
Jincheng Township, Kinmen County