Taking the global deployment of scientific activities in the contexts of colonies and empires into consideration, this essay discusses seismological practices on and in Taiwan, circa 1900. During the early years of Taiwan's colonization, the Japanese empire had to cope with the natural and political hazards of earthquakes in the new colony. Japanese knowledge regarding Taiwanese earthquakes was, therefore, a tool-box with which the empire could tame the formidable physical and political environment. On the other hand, as seismicity is simultaneously local and global, seismological investigations also moved across borders, interacting with local and global contexts.
