Fishing ports and landing bases function as the points of transference of catches to markets and to land distribution systems. They are the functional nodes of the fishing grounds and fishing market areas. This paper aims to assess, according to the spatial function viewpoint, the function and location of seven fishing ports and 48 undeveloped landing places (i.e. lacking wharf infrastructure) on the Eastern Taiwan coast. On the whole, the location of fishing ports is principally determined by the following conditions: (1) the degree of agglomeration of fishing functional facilities; (2) the size of fishing grounds utilized by a port and the richness of its fishery resources; (3) the economic distance between a fishing port and its markets. Fishing ports in Eastern Taiwan are small scale, their fishing fleets are of small tonnage, their fishing grounds are of limited scope, and their distribution and marketing are affected by topographical obstacles to transportation to the large consumer markets of Western Taiwan. In Eastern Taiwan, only the ports of Hsinkang, Hualien and Taitung possess landing, freezing, storing, packing, delivery and marketing functions. Due to the strong spatial convergence of these three fishing ports, they form three fishing marketing areas. The port with the strongest centrality, Hsinkang, possesses a regional wholesale market function. Huaiien and Taitung only possess a local wholesale market function. Green Island is a fishery base for the offshore islands of Eastern Taiwan. The Kuroshio current passes by this island and it has rich fishery resources. However, this offshore island is isolated from Taiwan proper, and yet must rely on the Taiwan market. These factors limit the development of its fishing industry. Apart from a small minority of fishing ports, the majority of fishing villages of Eastern Taiwan are lacking in fundamental infrastructure. They are without wharves and their fishermen just use plastic fishing rafts. Their fishing grounds cann□e further expanded, and the annual fishing period is quite short. In order to develop the fishing industry in Eastern Taiwan it is necessary to strengthen the functional facilities at the main fishing ports and encourage the use of larger fishing boats. This is the only way of expanding the space of the fishing grounds. Traditional domestic industries based on manual labor tend to be widely dispersed, but with the development methods where manual labor is replaced by machinery, industry normally exhibits follows a similar pattern. As fishery production technology improves and the fishing industry’s functional facilities are strengthened, the spatial development process of the fishing industry moves from a pattern of widely dispersed fishing villages towards being strongly agglomerated in a small number of fishing ports. In Taiwan, the production technology of the east coast fishing industry is comparatively undeveloped, and fishing port agglomeration is still not very marked.