壢 (lì)

It belongs to the local place-name word for a hollow valley. Taiwan’s Ministry of Education dictionary glosses 壢 as “pit” and gives 中壢 (Zhongli) and 內壢 (Neili) as place-name examples. The 1037 Jiyun, a Song-era Chinese rhyme dictionary, also records the “pit” sense.

A historian of Taiwan’s Hakka community, a Chinese-speaking group, records two explanations for Zhongli’s old name 澗仔壢: a hollow valley between streams, or the earlier Indigenous community 澗仔力社. A 1756–59 map names the community with 力; a 1760 map instead writes 澗仔壢, reflecting Hakka settlers’ later spelling. 中壢 later marked the settlement’s position between Tamsui and Hsinchu.