Taipei: By the Numbers
Taipei packs nearly 2.6 million people into just 272 square kilometers — over 9,700 per square kilometer.
Taipei is a city of feeling and flavor, but behind every moment are numbers that sketch its outline. To walk its streets is to live inside statistics come alive — density measured in footsteps, efficiency measured in train arrivals, culture measured in the smoke of incense and the sizzle of a wok. Numbers alone don’t tell the story, but they frame it.
Taipei is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with over 9,700 residents per square kilometer. Yet it doesn’t feel chaotic. Instead, density becomes rhythm — in the steady stream of scooters on the street, the hum of people in markets, the flow of commuters in and out of stations.
About 80% of households in Taiwan own a scooter, making them the dominant mode of transport.
Taipei’s MRT is its backbone: more than 2 million riders every day glide through its spotless stations. Trains arrive every few minutes, rarely late, making movement across the city seamless. Add the swarms of scooters, buses, and bicycles, and the city hums with mobility.
Taiwan hosts over 300 night markets; Taipei alone has dozens that light up every evening.
If Taipei has one universal habit, it’s eating outside the home. Surveys show more than half of all meals are consumed in restaurants, markets, or convenience stores. The result: tens of thousands of eateries tucked into alleys and glowing under neon signs.
With 11,000+ locations, convenience stores double as community spaces across Taiwan.
Even convenience stores are part of the dining ecosystem. Taiwan has more than 11,000 of them — that’s about one for every 2,000 people. In Taipei, they aren’t just shops, but late-night kitchens, meeting rooms, and makeshift cafés.
Freedom Square’s Archway stretches 30 meters wide and 28 meters high, designed to inspire awe.
Numbers rise skyward in Taipei’s skyline too. At 508 meters, Taipei 101 once held the title of the tallest building in the world, and still dominates the city’s silhouette. On the ground, the vast plazas of Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall and the Freedom Square Archway remind you of scale in a different sense — places designed to gather thousands, now glowing as cultural beacons.
Taipei is also shaped by quieter numbers. Taiwan is home to over 15,000 temples, and incense smoke rising in courtyards is part of daily life. Meanwhile, crime rates here are among the lowest in Asia, and surveys consistently rank Taiwan as one of the safest places in the world to live and travel.
Taiwan has more than 15,000 temples — symbols of faith woven into daily city life.
The data offers a portrait: density, mobility, meals, landmarks, faith. Taipei in numbers is precise, ordered, almost clinical. But living those numbers is something else entirely. Numbers can say that more than 2 million people ride the MRT daily, but they can’t capture the kindness of a stranger guiding you to the right platform. They can say that half of all meals are eaten outside the home, but they can’t describe the laughter at a crowded counter where strangers share food.
The numbers framed Taipei for me — but the people, the flavors, and the moments filled it in. Taipei is both a dataset and a lived experience. And it’s in the intersection of the two that the city lingers.
To see more photos & videos from my travels visit the links below
happy traveling,
~Sean
