Having wrapped up my 10-17 April 2018 stay in Tainan, Taiwan, here are the numbers. See my city ranking criteria post for a fulsome description of each category. Much of what I had to say about Taipei also applies to Tainan. For the most up-to-date city ratings and a side-by-side comparison of all of the places I’ve visited, see my city ratings page.

• Rent: 8.1. I don’t actually have rental price data for Tainan. Here, I’m using Numbeo’s data for the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment in the city center of the nearby, larger city of Kaohsiung.
• Walkability: 3. Have I mentioned all the motor scooters whizzing around corners, heedless of pedestrians in crosswalks? I think I have.

• Dating: 3. See Taipei.
• Food: 9.3. The food here is just as good, possibly even slightly better, than in Taipei, and it’s slightly cheaper, too.
  

  This little Mom-and-Pop restaurant has only five items on the menu, and they’re all delicious (13 April 2018).

• Ambience: 2. You go to Taiwan for the food, not the ambience.
  

  Anyone up for some “KLG” tonight? (11 April 2018)

• Transit: 6. The buses here are cheap and you never have to wait long for one. There are also multiple bike-sharing services. A subway would be nice, though.
• Health Care: 8.5. I don’t have a Tainan data point for this rating, either, so I’m using Taipei as a proxy. I did visit a couple of dentists here. The combined cost for a check-up, x-ray, and a replaced filling at one of them: NT$830 ($28.35). The dentist was all apologetic about how expensive it was for me since I’m not on Taiwan’s national health insurance. Somehow I managed to keep a straight face.
• Nature: 3. There are some fairly scenic bike paths in Tainan, but they’re a ways out from downtown. And the city’s quite flat. There aren’t any great hiking opportunites nearby.
• Internet: 9.
• Crime: 8.8. Again, I have no data for Tainan. Taipei gets an 8.8.
• Language: 8. Mandarin Chinese goes a long way here. The Taiwanese dialect is spoken more widely here in southern Taiwan than in Taipei in the north, so if I lived in Tainan I’d want to pick a little of it up.
• Bikeability: 3. Ooh, another 3 for you Tainan! Not looking good! I appreciate the bike paths, but they’re too far out to be practical. Cycling in downtown Tainan is definitely not for the faint of heart.
• Friendliness: 6. The aggressive drivers aside, I’d say people in Tainan are a little more welcoming than those in Taipei. I found that people here put aside some of the Chinese reserve and opened up fairly quickly when I spoke in Mandarin with them. And the staff at my hotel were super friendly.
  

  The staff here love me, and I love them (16 April 2018).

• Pollution: 2.4. I’m using Kaohsiung’s data point as a stand-in for Tainan here. I personally didn’t think the air quality was that bad. It’s certainly better than Beijing.