Jinguashi (Chinese: 金瓜石) is a town in Ruifang District, (瑞芳區) New Taipei City (新北市), Taiwan. Jinguashi is notable for its historic gold mines. After the minerals depleted, Jinguashi still attracts many visitors to its Gold Ecological Park (黃金博物園) with several Japanese relics.
Crown Prince Chalet (太子賓館) is a residence built in 1922 for the proposed visit of Crown Prince Hirohito (昭和) to the area, but he never visited in reality.
Crown Prince Chalet is a typical high class Japanese building with Western design features, having the kind of mixed Japanese and western architectural style that was popular at that time.
Decades later Jinguashi was used by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) as lodging in the area. Crown Prince Chalet is one of the finest surviving wooden Japanese buildings in Taiwan.
Siliandong (四連棟), literally means “four joined of Japanese-Style residence”, is one of the few remaining Japanese buildings of this type in Taiwan. The building has a delicate wooden structure and layered wall boards adapted to suit the rainy conditions.
Ōgon Shrine (黄金神社) also known as the Jinguashi Shinto Shrine, is a Shinto shrine located halfway up a mountain in the Gold Ecological Park in Jinguashi. The shrine was built in 1933.
The name of Jinguashi comes from the Big Jingua Mountain (大金瓜山) and the Small Jingua Mountain (小金瓜山), which look like pumpkins. Pumpkins are called "Jingua"(golden melons) in Taiwanese.
