Qieding District, Kaohsiung

Etymology

One theory is that it is named for a type of local mangrove. Another is that it derived from a Makattao aboriginal name, written as "Cattia" or "Cattea" by Europeans, meaning "place of many fish" (literally "ten fish"). This was then rendered as Ka-tang-tiāⁿ-á (茄苳萣仔)^[3] and Ka-tiāⁿ-á (茄萣仔) in Taiwanese Hokkien and also Ka-tiāⁿ (茄萣) or Ka-têng (茄藤) with both sets of characters also referring to types of Avicennia (cf. 海茄苳 Avicennia marina, 海茄朾).

The Qieding District Office with English signage reading "Qieding District Office Kaohsiung City"

Pronunciation and Romanization

Traditionally, the name is pronounced Ka-tiāⁿ in Taiwanese and Jīadìng in Mandarin. Following the 1945 handover of Taiwan, the name was romanized as Chiating via the Wade-Giles system. The later systems MPS II and Tongyong Pinyin yielded Jiading, which is seen on street signs and signs on the district office and the local elementary and junior high schools.

However outside of Jiading, the pronunciation of Qiédìng in Mandarin is common, using an alternate reading of the first Chinese character in the name (Chinese: 茄; pinyin: jiā; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: kiô). With the adoption of Hanyu Pinyin for Taiwanese place names in 2009, the name was officially rendered as Qieding by the Ministry of the Interior, but has not achieved uniform implementation. Buses from Kaohsiung and Tainan have the name Romanized with the non-standard "Chieding". The district's website uses several non-standard spellings including "Cieding",^[4] "Cheting",^[5] and "Chieting".^[6]