Editing Kaohsiung (section)

==Etymology<span class="anchor" id="Names"></span><span class="anchor" id="Toponymy"></span>==
[[File:Map of Taiwan (Formosa) in 1880, from- Stanford's map of the empires of China and Japan with the adjacent parts of the Russian Empire, India, Burma etc. LOC 2006458442 (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|Map of Taiwan including Takau (Kaohsiung) (1880)]]
[[Hoklo people|Hoklo]] immigrants to the area during the 16th and 17th centuries called the region ''Takau'' ({{zh|c=打狗 |poj=Táⁿ-káu|links=no}}). The surface meaning of the associated [[Chinese characters]] was "beat the dog". According to one theory, the name Takau originates from the aboriginal [[Siraya language]] and translates as "bamboo forest". According to another theory, the name evolved via [[metathesis (linguistics)|metathesis]] from the name of the [[Makatao people|Makatao]] tribe, who inhabited the area at the time of European and Hoklo settlement. The Makatao is considered by some to be part of the [[Siraya people|Siraya]] tribe.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2009-04-23 |title=Siraya activists slam ministry over letter - Taipei Times |url=https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/04/23/2003441794 |access-date=2021-02-09 |website=www.taipeitimes.com |archive-date=12 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412200101/https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/04/23/2003441794 |url-status=live}}</ref>

During the [[Dutch Formosa|Dutch colonization]] of southern Taiwan, the area was known as ''Tancoia'' to Europeans for a period of about three decades.{{Specify|reason=Which three decades?|date=January 2019}} In 1662, the Dutch were expelled by the [[Kingdom of Tungning]], founded by Ming loyalists of [[Koxinga]]. His son, [[Zheng Jing]], renamed the village ''Banlian-chiu'' ({{zh|t=萬年州|poj=Bān-liân-chiu|links=no|l=ten-thousand-year state (''[[Zhou (country subdivision)|zhou]]'')}}) in 1664.

The name of "Takau" was restored in the late 1670s, when the town expanded drastically with immigrants from [[mainland China]] and was kept through Taiwan's cession to the Japanese Empire in 1895. In his 1903 general history of Taiwan, US Consul to Formosa [[James W. Davidson]] relates that "Takow" was already a well-known name in English.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Davidson |first1=James W. |author-link=James W. Davidson |year=1903 |title=The Island of Formosa, Past and Present: History, People, Resources, and Commercial Prospects: Tea, Camphor, Sugar, Gold, Coal, Sulphur, Economical Plants, and Other Productions |publisher=Macmillan |url=https://archive.org/details/islandofformosap00davi |location=London and New York |ol=6931635M |oclc=1887893 |page=iii |access-date=20 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150108025015/https://archive.org/details/islandofformosap00davi |archive-date=8 January 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 1920, the name was changed to {{nihongo||高雄|Takao|after {{ill|Takao (Kyoto)|ja|高雄 (京都市)}}, a place in [[Ukyō-ku, Kyoto|Ukyō Ward, Kyoto]]|lead=yes}} and administered the area under [[Takao Prefecture]]. While the new name had quite a different surface meaning, its pronunciation in Japanese sounded more or less the same as the old name spoken in [[Hokkien]].

After Taiwan was ceded to the Republic of China, the Chinese characters did not change, but adapted to Mandarin pronunciation, thus the official romanization became Kaohsiung ({{zh|w=Kao¹-hsiung²|p=Gāoxióng}}), derived from the [[Wade–Giles]] romanization of the [[Mandarin Chinese]] pronunciation for {{lang|zh|高雄}}.

The name ''Takau'' remains the official name of the city in [[Formosan languages|Austronesian languages]] of Taiwan such as [[Rukai language|Rukai]], although these are not widely spoken in the city. The name also remains popular locally in the naming of businesses, associations, and events.