Houtong Cat Village
The Houtong Cat Village or Houdong Cat Village is a village in Ruifang District, New Taipei, Taiwan known for its cat population.
Name
Houtong was originally called Kau-tong due to the existence of a cave inhabited by monkeys in the early days.History
Houtong was once a small, rich mining village in Ruifang, renowned for a well-preserved culture surrounding its railway which was built during the Japanese rule of Taiwan. During its peak economic period, it produced around 220,000 tons of coal annually, the largest coal output of a single area in Taiwan. This attracted many immigrants to the area, which further spurred the village's growth to as many as 900 households with a population of more than 6,000 people. The last facility built in the area was a coal purification factory, built in 1920.As the coal mining industry began to decline in the 1990s, the area also declined. Young residents began to look for job opportunities elsewhere outside the village, leaving only a few hundred residents remained.
In 2008, a local cat lover organized an activity to save abandoned cats around the village. They posted the cats' pictures online, resulting in an overwhelming response from other cat lovers around the nation. Soon, Houtong became a center for cat lovers as the words spread, and the number of cats living there increased, which eventually revived the declining village, and transforming it into a tourist destination. Some cats are sterilized, and will have one of their ears trimmed as confirmation – this helps to keep check on the local population of cats, and also helps identify new cats which enter into the village.