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Taipei is famous worldwide for its large night markets like the Raohe Street Night Market (饒河街觀光夜市) and Shilin Night Market (士林夜市), but local markets open during the day receive far less, if any, attention from tourists.

Of course, plenty of Taipei people do their day-to-day grocery shopping at big chain stores like Wellcome (no, the double L is not a typo, that is its actual name), RT-Mart, Carrefour, or the more upscale Jason's Marketplace.

However, local day markets still are an important part of the culture and are well worth visiting whether you are in Taipei on business to do market research to determine what local people might buy from your company, you're an international student who wants to practice Mandarin outside of the classroom, or you simply like local experiences. Of course, if you find yourself living in Taipei, local markets always are the best place to go to buy the freshest produce, too.

Effectively every neighborhood in Taipei has at least one local market, but visiting all of them is beyond the scope of just about anyone's time in Taipei — local, expat, or tourist — but if travelgasm.com is to pick just one largely overlooked market to recommend visiting in the morning, we choose the Zhongshan Market (中山市場).

First established in the Imperial Japanese era as the Zhao An Market (昭安市場), and renamed the Zhongshan Market by the Taiwanese after independence, the Zhongshan Market is historically relevant and architecturally distinctive as well as a place to buy the simple day-to-day necessities of life. Despite its convenient, central location, it's been largely ignored by tourists with barely a mention on major tourist advisory sites or search engine reviews at the time travelgasm.com first wrote this piece.

There are plenty of other day markets that are near major tourist attractions and easy for a tourist to visit, as well. Including the Zhongshan Market, seven local traditional day markets typically overlooked and of potential interest include:

These seven markets are listed on the map below by the above numbers, too. No matter where you're staying in Taipei — and which major tourist attractions you choose to visit — you should be able to fit in at least one of these markets into your itinerary. Like day markets just about everywhere in the world, they're at their most active in the early morning. They may be sleepy or closed altogether by afternoon.

From Taipei? Is there another traditional market that you think particularly captures the spirit of your hometown? Please share. 謝謝.

How to Get Here: The Zhongshan Market (中山市場) is a short walk from Zhongshan Station (中山), MRT Exit 1, but it's even closer to Exit R4 of the connected Zhongshan Metro Mall (中山地下街).

Cities > Taipei > Taipei Overlooked 7 > Next: (5) Try a Small Night Market... >>

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Live in Taipei? What's your favorite "local" thing to do? 謝謝. Spotted anything out-of-date or inaccurately translated? 對不起我是老外. Please tell travelgasm.com. Thanks!