Magang Fishing Village, located in Gongliao District, New Taipei City, is a fishing village settlement at the easternmost point of Taiwan Island. It is rich in seafood such as abalone, lobster, agar, and laver. The women of the village support their families by working as female divers (haenyeo) in the intertidal zone, forming a unique haenyeo culture.

The early settlers built stone houses near Magang Fishing Port, using locally sourced materials. These houses, designed for wind and erosion resistance, have walls up to one meter thick and are equipped with wave-breaking walls. The houses are stacked and interconnected, showcasing the ingenuity of the early settlers in adapting to the coastal environment. It is a rare example in the Northeast Coast of Taiwan of a still well-preserved stone house settlement.

However, since March and April 2018, several Magang residents have been sued by a foundation demanding the demolition of their stone houses and the return of their land. This stems from a long-standing discrepancy between landowners and homeowners in the area: residents have lived there for over a century, but after the Nationalist government came to Taiwan and the regime changed hands, the land was registered under only a few names. Homeowners had verbal agreements with the landowners, paying them land use fees. Starting in 2012, conglomerates began acquiring land from the landowners without the residents’ knowledge, only revealing the change of ownership after being sued.

To protect their homes and preserve the entire stone house cluster, the residents of Magang Fishing Village applied to the New Taipei City Government for registration as a cluster of buildings in November 2018 under the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act. They subsequently filed an administrative lawsuit against the New Taipei City Government’s August 2019 announcement that it would not register the cluster.