寺廟形成了台灣文化的特色。台灣幾乎每個地方都有寺廟,年代早表示當地開發早,規模大表示地方經濟力量雄厚,所以,寺廟在臺灣也往往是臺灣的移民們集合的中心。綜觀漢人在台灣的開拓史,原始地理環境無可避免的天災、疾病等所帶來的侵擾,及尚要與各原住民族群之間爭地以致爭戰不休之外,篳路藍縷以啟山林的艱辛等等,都對先民的生活財產造成了莫大的威脅,使得生活更顯得艱辛異常。因此,藉著傳承自故鄉祖籍的信仰力量,給予先民精神上的無限慰藉,支持著先民面對生活的種種困境以及無法預測的未來命運,宗教信仰成為潛在的最大支配力量,可說所有台灣傳統的聚落及城市發展沒有不以寺廟為重心的。 The Taiwan Strait amongst Formosa, Canton and Fuchien, in spite of neighbourhood, in ancient China was the massive obstacle for inter-communication, yet Taiwan history in connection with China can trace back to Suei Dynasty that developed along with more than one thousand years swung the conquest by Suei, Yuan''s amnesty, Ming to Ching Dynasty, however the Han ancestry commenced to emigrate and excavate Taiwan never stopped then.
Sequentially it had been four hundred years since Tseng''s holding Taiwan in the last phase of Ming Dynasty thru the early stage of Ching that people from Fuchien and Canton reckless of the ban by Ching government moved cross Taiwan Strait for dreaming lives in the fairland of Taiwan whatever agriculture or traifficking. Those people being ashore firmly believe in Buddhism, especially in sea Goddess, therefore the ancestry brought their traditional religions, customs and believes into Taiwan.
Each wave of emigrants in different stage into Taiwan wherever Fuchien or Canton always brought individual God of the temple or shrine to the own community or settlement to worship for blessing that makes their believes and customs to inherit generation by generation. Those splendid temples or shrines individually spread into all of Taiwan have their own localities what were set up and rebuilt again and again to stay what they are nowadays.
Thus, in other word, viewing into the temples wherever in Taiwan recites a long story that the existence of religion in Taiwan has developed, even mutated into the typical Buddhistical Taoism. Each local temple implies how the people are, those days they were and the way they undertook.
By far the present people on Taiwan know very well about where we were from and what we are today. And the temples on Taiwan expatiate entirely at all.