Isle of Time

Read Taiwan, century by century. A literary archive of an island — from Dutch Formosa to the present. This update: reimagined iPad layouts throughout.

Isle of Time is a digital exhibition chronicling four hundred years of Formosa's history — from the Age of Exploration to modern Taiwan.

Presented with the editorial clarity of a broadsheet newspaper, each article draws from primary sources, archival documents, and images spanning eight distinct historical eras. Browse at your own pace, follow thematic threads that weave across centuries, or let the app surface a new reading each day.

CHRONICLE Browse a curated timeline spanning eight eras of Taiwan's history — from Dutch and Spanish colonization through the Qing Dynasty, Japanese colonial period, and the road to democracy. A parallel music timeline traces the island's sonic heritage from early gramophone recordings to contemporary indie.

HISTORICAL ATLAS See where history took place. An interactive map of Taiwan, Penghu, and Green Island plots key events as color-coded dots. Pinch, zoom, and tap to explore connections between eras, follow thematic threads across the island, and jump straight into any article.

THEMATIC THREADS Follow cross-cutting themes — trade, governance, identity, resistance — that connect events across four centuries into coherent narratives.

DAILY READING A different article surfaces each day, drawn from across the full archive, so there is always something new to discover.

LISTEN Have any article read aloud with built-in text-to-speech, and continue listening as you browse.

BOOKMARKS & SEARCH Save articles for later and search across the entire archive by title or keyword.

Sources and images are drawn from the Academia Historica, National Archives Administration, U.S. National Archives, and other publicly available scholarly resources.

Designed and developed by Studio Aspen.