Formally no, Kenting is not a city but a village. Kenting is one of 17 villages that comprises Henghcun township, and is further a part of Pingtung County. Other villages in Hengchun area besides Kenting are Chengbei, Chengnan, Chengxi, Daguang, Dehe, Eluan, Jiahu, Longshui, Nanwan, Renshou, Shanhai, Shanjiao, Shuiquan, Sigou, Tougou and Wangsha.
Where is Kenting located?
To answer this question, we first need to see and understand the zoning and the areas of Kenting National Park instead, and only then we can see exactly where Kenting village per se is located exactly.
Kenting National Park headquarters main website, have this extensive pdf document published on their website which shows current areas of Kenting National Park and subsequent zoning, which we can see currently consists of 52 areas.
Kenting National park is divided in 52 zones, and Kenting village is zone Nr.32
Formally, Kenting is not a city but a village, but its size may be bigger than a typical village in Taiwan.
To make things easier, we have made this infographic for you with english translations of every area of Kenting National Park and illustration of main attractions in these areas. Description and more photos are here.
As we can see from this, Kenting village as such is area NR 32. Let’s analyze now Kenting area already from the perspective of Kenting National Park.
Now, this is where it really (partially) answers where the Kenting is. Formally Kenting as we can include part of the Dawan area and all Dawan beach, Frog rock area & Kenting Youth Activity Center, Kenting Night Market, Xiaowan (Small bay), and very secluded Lovers beach.
In the map above I marked 3 well-known places for you to have better orientation:
1 – Chateau Beach Resort
2 – Frog Rock & Lovers Beach
3 – Xiaowan (Small bay)
In the zoning above, you can see areas are shaded in different colors. Here are legend translations to English from the Kenting NPH website:
So, as we can see above the main village, or most of the buildings including homestays, B&B’s are built on areas marked with yellow, with an exception such as Chateau Beach Resort which clearly stands in a red – recreational area, while Kenting Youth Activity Center is in Special Landscape Area of Kenting National park.
You can read more about these areas in this post.
Another problem of the zoning of the areas of Kenting, and Kenting National Park as such, is probably why booking.com is placing completely different areas of Kenting, such as Hengchun city, Baishawan and even Wanlitong all under the strange name “Hengchun South Gate”, which we discuss more in details in the price study of Kenting accommodations.
If you are interested in Hengchun Ancient City, and its history, we have a whole blog post here.