Chianan Canal is an irrigation system built for promoting the agricultural productions of Chianan Plain

Chianan Plain

The Chianan Plain or Jianan Plain is an alluvial plain located at the central-southern region of western Taiwan. It is the largest plain of the island, and lies in Tainan City and Chiayi County/Chiayi City, from which the name of the plain derived. It also includes some portions of Yunlin County,...

 of Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. The name "chia-nan" was derived from two place names among its surrounding area called Chiayi

Chiayi County

Chiayi County is a county in southwestern Taiwan surrounding but not including Chiayi City. Its historical name in Taiwanese Hokkien derives from Tsirosen in the Formosan languages...

 and Tainan

Tainan

Tainan City is a city in southern Taiwan. It is the fifth largest after New Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Taipei. It was formerly a provincial city, and in 2010, the provincial city merged with the adjacent Tainan County to form a single special municipality. Tainan faces the Taiwan Strait in...

. Although it includes some assistant facilities, such as the Wushantou Reservoir, the term "Chianan Canal", in a narrow sense, would only means the canal

Canal

Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

s of this system.

The main designer of the Chianan Canal is Yoichi Hatta

Yoichi Hatta

was a Japanese engineer, known for his contributions in hydraulic engineering in the Japanese-ruled Taiwan. Hatta was born in Kanazawa, Ishikawa. After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1910, he joined the Seat of Governor-General of Taiwan, served as a technician of the government...

, a civil engineer of the Japanese colonial government. Its main streams pass through today's Tainan, Chiayi and Yunlin. The architectural work of canal was launched in 1920 and completed in 1930, during Japanese rule

Taiwan under Japanese rule

Between 1895 and 1945, Taiwan was a dependency of the Empire of Japan. The expansion into Taiwan was a part of Imperial Japan's general policy of southward expansion during the late 19th century....

. Chianan Canal improved the planting area of rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

 from 5000 to 150,000 hectare

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

s, and made the rice crops in its irrigated area can harvest three times annually.