"Relationship population" describes a group between settled residents and tourists — people who don't necessarily live somewhere full-time, but build deep emotional, cultural, and economic ties to a specific place through coliving and skill-exchange stays. This piece isn't about visas or housing prices — it's a map of the local portals across Taiwan that make people want to stay, not just find somewhere to live.

Three drivers, three ways people stick around

Mapping Taiwan's local portals reveals three core drivers: lifestyle-driven (surfing, mountains, diving, and other nature experiences), industry-culture-driven (bookstores, craft, stone tidal weirs, old-house renovation, and other skill-learning), and mission-driven (market renovation, rural education, market curation, and other public-issue interventions). Together, these three drivers shape how the relationship population sticks.

North: Star Harbor and Kan-Le Cultural & Creative

Star Harbor Art Collective, in Keelung's Zhengbin Fishing Harbor, translates what was once northern Taiwan's first modernized fishing port into a hub for youth entrepreneurship and cultural promotion — its "Everlasting Whale Interpretation Team" leads harbor-history tours, and its "Everlasting Seaside Art Museum" drives art co-creation and illustrator exchange stays, drawing illustrators, designers, and architects across disciplines. In New Taipei's Sanxia, Kan-Le Cultural & Creative is the flagship for mission-driven revitalization: its "Heshi Settlement" repurposes abandoned old houses and a former hospital, "Grass Bookstore" mentors at-risk youth in woodcarving, indigo dyeing, and metalwork, and its Ho-Nai-Chuan soy-product line — made from non-GMO Taiwanese soybeans — became the "flagship product" funding the whole ecosystem.

Central: Hai Feng Chui and Small Town Cultural & Creative

Hai Feng Chui in Miaoli's Yuanli, founded in 2013 after the "anti-wind-turbine" social movement, saw co-founder Liu Yu-yu later elected mayor of Yuanli — turning outside-the-system protest into inside-the-system local revitalization practice. Small Town Cultural & Creative in Nantou's Zhushan is Taiwan's pioneer of skill-for-stay exchange — He Pei-chun borrowed NT$15 million to restore the century-old "Sky's Courtyard" guesthouse, and early on drew young people to trade professional skills for free lodging while helping Zhushan's old shops innovate. Its strategy has since scaled into an "Asian Regional Revitalization Digital Convergence Center," rolling out blockchain and a digital-villager-ID system.

South: Launcher Lab and Ci. Bookstore

Launcher Lab, in Pingtung's Hengchun, is Taiwan's best-known lifestyle-and-sound-industry-driven digital nomad haven — it's turning the peninsula's culture into a world-class world-music island, and its "Peninsula Sound & Image Residency" connects creators with local traditional artisans to collect folk songs and natural sounds. Ci. Bookstore, in Pingtung City's Shengli Star Village (often mistakenly attributed to Tainan), is an independent bookstore that turns culinary research into edible media, and hosts a podcast exploring folk-belief culture across Taiwan and Southeast Asia.

East and outer islands: Dawu, Etude Bookstore, Salty Island Cooperative

Taitung's Dawu Nomad Village rents 6 vacant public houses to domestic and international nomads for NT$3,000/month; Hualien's Etude Bookstore in Xincheng started by supporting a local Little League baseball team, and its "exchange-stay managers" run the store day-to-day but their real job is having dinner, chatting, and helping the kids with homework; Penghu's Isle.Travel focuses on restoring stone tidal weirs, funding the last remaining artisans with tour revenue; and Matsu's Dongyin-based Salty Island Cooperative draws writers, illustrators, and designers through short-to-mid-term exchange stays — in 2025 it hosted UK and Japanese cross-media artists for a month-long residency.

Urban hubs: 9floor and Banana Coliving

Taipei's 9floor converts old apartments into shared, café-aesthetic living rooms under the philosophy that "the house is rented, but life isn't"; Banana Coliving, one of Taiwan's largest coliving brands, offers month-to-month flexibility that matches a nomad's rhythm perfectly. These urban hubs function as the relationship population's incubator and transit station.

Coliving solves where to land. What actually makes people stay is usually these threads of history, craft, and public purpose woven into a place.