The first European colonial presence on the island was established by the Dutch East India Company (the VOC), which built Fort Zeelandia on the southwest coast (today’s Tainan) in 1624. A Spanish presence was simultaneously established in the north, around what is now Keelung and Danshui, from 1626, though this was expelled by the Dutch in 1642. The Dutch period, though brief, introduced the island to organised trade, missionary activity, and a kind of administrative framework. Its legacy remains visible in place names and in certain architectural fragments around Tainan.