Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall

The Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, completed in 1972, is dedicated to China’s national founding father. In addition to a large seated statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, whose military guard is changed hourly, the hall features exhibits from the founding father’s life, a world-class performance hall, and elegant exhibition center with an area of around 10,000 square feet. It hosts art, film, and music performances and is sited in Chung-shan Square Park.

Doctor Sun Yat-sen, born in 1866 into a Chinese peasant family in Kwangtung, China near the Portuguese colony of Macao, was educated as a medical doctor in Hawaii, Canton, China and Hong Kong. As the leader of China’s republican revolution he did much to inspire and organize the movement that overthrew the Manchu dynasty in 1911—a family of rulers that had reigned over China for nearly three hundred years. On January 1, 1912, Sun Yat-sen proclaimed the establishment of the Republic of China. A bitter power struggle in 1913 forced Sun Yat-sen to flee China to Japan. In 1916 he returned to Shanghai and reorganized his party, this time as the Chinese Kuomintang. He published several manifestos outlining his vision of the Chinese republic, and his political fortunes waxed and waned through several years of civil wars.

Sun Yat-sen died in 1925 in Peking, China and was given a state funeral. His leadership position in the Kuomintang was eventually taken by his former military aide, General Chiang Kai-shek, who in 1949 fled to Taiwan after losing mainland China to the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong. Chiang Kai-shek led the Kuomintang in Taiwan until his death in 1975, and before his funeral his body laid in state in the newly-constructed Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.