Tainan, the home of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup

Tainan, a special municipality in southern Taiwan, situated on its western coast facing the Taiwan Strait and home to over 1.8 million people, has hosted the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup since 2017. Tainan City is the oldest city on the island, incorporated in 1624 by the Dutch under Fort Zeelandia, a fortress built over the decade from 1624 to 1634 by the Dutch East India Company in the town of Anping.

Zheng Chenggong, better known as Koxinga, a Ming loyalist and chief commander of the Ming troops, attacked the Dutch colonists in Taiwan in 1661. After a nine-month siege, the Dutch Governor of Taiwan, Frederik Coyett, surrendered Fort Zeelandia to Koxinga on 1 February 1662.

As a consequence of the Chinese losing the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, a Japanese army arrived at Tainan in October 1895 and took the city without facing resistance.

The Japanese rule brought baseball to the island. Japan’s government began to promote the game of baseball systematically in the 1920s, and Tainan Second Senior High School was among the earliest schools to form baseball teams.

Tainan Stadium is one of the earliest baseball stadiums in Taiwan. Then-Tainan Mayor Hikojuro Hishimura led the project, and the city completed it in under three months (from November 20, 1930, to January 31, 1931) with a 900-seat ballpark. With renovations performed in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, it is the only Japanese-built stadium still used for professional games in Taiwan. The Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) call it home.

According to the stats, Tainan City has nurtured the second most CPBL draftees through ninth grade (240), only behind Taitung County (244) (numbers as at 2022). Tainan City and Taitung County are the only two cities that have nurtured more than 200 draftees in CPBL draft history.

Among the 45 Taiwan Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, 11 were born in Tainan (24.4%, the highest percentage). Among the notables are current Chinese Taipei Baseball Association (CTBA) Vice President Hua Wei Lin, who represented Chinese Taipei in the Olympics and managed them in the historic 2001 Baseball World Cup; former Seibu Lions of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) pitcher Tai-Yuan Kuom, who managed Chinese Taipei in the WBSC Premier12 2019; and former Major League Baseball (MLB) players Chien Ming Wang (New York Yankees) and Chin-Feng Chen (Los Angeles Dodgers). Wang is currently the pitching coach for Chinese Taipei, while Feng is the skipper of the CPBL's Fubon Guardians.

In 2019, the Tainan government inaugurated the Asia Pacific International Baseball Stadium, a first-of-its-kind facility designed specifically for the U-12 age bracket and to host the U-12 Baseball World Cup, which was built at a cost of US$130 million.

In July 2025, CTBA President, Jefferey Koo, Jr., announced that the Asia-Pacific International Baseball Stadiums and Training Centres will be "the home" of the Chinese Taipei team.

Tainan City celebrated its 400th anniversary during the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup 2023. The city can legitimately claim to be the home of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup and will host the ninth edition in 2027.

The WBSC U.12 Baseball World Cup 2025 presented by RAXUS opens on July 25.