A small town ringed by hills, where neighbours chat under the old bishop wood tree at the head of the Old Street
The closest neighborhoods in the same city.
Living in Shenkeng, daily life turns around an old street about 300 metres long. Both sides are lined with arcaded shophouses built after the Japanese-era street improvement scheme, and the Old Street is famous for handmade brine-set tofu. At the head of the street stands an old bishop wood tree; the roundabout beneath it has benches where neighbours sit and chat. In 1981 a road-widening plan would have cut it down, but residents petitioned the president and the tree was saved.
Real-estate listings say the Old Street is packed with visitors at weekends, but the shops, clinics and places to eat that residents use every day are on Puxin Street and Section 3 of Beishen Road. For groceries there is Shenkeng Market, and the chain supermarkets are PX Mart and Wellcome.
From the Old Street, about 1 km west along Beishen Road brings you to Tungnan University.
Real-estate listings describe Section 3 of Beishen Road as a self-contained cluster that puts schools, homes, a small industrial area and shops side by side. Tungnan University was founded in 1970; real-estate listings say it brings many student renters, so studios and room shares nearby are plentiful too.
For school, the base catchment of Shenkeng Elementary School is the whole of Shenkeng, so all four villages in the neighborhood are in it.
In our street photos, greenery ranks 54th and buildings 63rd, both in the middle tier.
Shenkeng has no MRT; getting in and out depends on buses and the national freeways. Public transport ranks 97th out of 100 neighborhoods in New Taipei, close to the bottom; daily shopping ranks 79th, healthcare 75th, pavements 82nd and litter and street cleanliness 86th, all in the lower tier as well.
Real-estate listings say Section 3 of Beishen Road often jams at peak hours, when school traffic, industrial-area commuters and freeway traffic all meet there; buses into and out of Taipei are easily caught in traffic too. Real-estate listings also say the hills make the air damp and winters feel cold, so older homes need good dehumidifying.
The name Shenkeng, "deep pit", comes from the hills that surround the area on every side: Han settlers saw it as a deep hollow in the earth.
Shenkeng Street was already a market street in the Jiaqing era of the Qing dynasty; it was a stop that every traveller on the Tamsui-Kavalan Trail passed through, and a trading hub for tea and dyes shipped out along the Jingmei River. From 1915 the Japanese widened the street and built the arcades; after the Second World War, roads and railways replaced river transport and Shenkeng declined. From 2008 the New Taipei City Government designated Shenkeng Street a special zone for historic townscape, and restoration was completed in 2012.
The Shenkeng Light Rail has not yet been approved. In September 2026, the director of the New Taipei City Department of Rapid Transit Systems said all of the central government's review comments had been answered and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications had passed the study to the Executive Yuan; comprehensive planning will start once it is approved.
Compared with the 100 New Taipei neighborhoods in this guide (scores 0–10)
NHI-contracted hospitals, public elementary and junior high schools whose catchment covers this area (estimated from the New Taipei City Education Department's 2026 school-year catchment lists, treating every neighborhood in a village as equal in size; "Shared catchment" marks a free-choice zone where families can pick between two or more schools), high schools and universities within 1 km, stations, parks of 1 ha or more (OpenStreetMap), and large shopping malls and department stores (OpenStreetMap).
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How to read it: yellow = poor, blue = good; grey = not enough data
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