Beipu is a Hakka township in the west of Hsinchu County. During the Qing Dynasty, it had a mixed population comprising of people from the Saisiya indigenous tribe and the Plains indigenous tribe. It is now mostly Hakka and is the area with the highest proportion of Hakkas in Taiwan. It is representative of a typical traditional Hakka settlement. There are many historic buildings in the small old district, as well as rich intangible cultural assets, such as Ghost Festival and traditional Hakka songs, which blend with the unique and old Hakka settlement atmosphere.

Many buildings from the Qing dynasty and Japanese colonial era remain around the town's Old Street. Beipu was the base for the Hakka immigrants in the Daoguang Period of the Qing Dynasty. The process of Hakka ancestors’ settling down in this area in those days can still be seen in some architectural features built for defense on Beipu Old Street. Completed in 1835, Jin Guang Fu Hall (金廣福公館) was the home to the office in charge of administering the "Chin Kuang Fu" development fund and symbolized the cooperation in the area between migrants from Guangdong and Fujian in the Beipu area at the time. Beipu Citian Temple (北埔慈天宮) was completed in 1846 and is the local belief center. Zhongshu Hall (忠恕堂) was completed in 1922; it was built by Tseng Cheng-tong (曾成統), who is the son of the first scholar from Beipu to pass the imperial examinations in the Qing dynasty.

The Jiang family made a fortune during the early settlement process and left many old houses in the area of the Old Street. One example is Tianshui Tang, known as the "Jiang House," where Jiang descendants still live today. Jiang Ah Hsin Residence (姜阿新洋樓) is a Baroque-style Western building completed in 1949. The owner, Jiang Ah Hsin (姜阿新), was a rich Beipu black-tea merchant. Jiang Family Ancestral Temple, built in 1924, is one of the four main ancestral temples of Taiwan.

During the Japanese occupation period, Japanese people valued the tea resources of Beipu and set up a tea industry testing site here. The tea produced here was exported to Japan, where it was very popular. So tea factories were set up everywhere, bringing a prosperous life for Beipu's residents. However, after the most prosperous tea production company in Beipu went bankrupt, and its subsidiary company Yong Guang went out of business in 1964, the Beipu tea industry suddenly declined.

In recent years, with the efforts of local tea farmers, Beipu tea has once again become well-known; it is also known as Baihao Oolong Tea or Oriental Beauty Tea, which is the highest quality representative of Taiwan’s oolong tea. In 2004, the Beipu Tea Production and Marketing Class won first place in the “Hsinchu County 2005 Local Industry Flagship Products” contest with “Beipu Peng Feng Tea.” The Beipu Tea Production and Marketing Class then decided to promote the brand name of “Beipu Mountain Tea” and establish a brand in Beipu, hoping to market Beipu tea products widely.

Due to its popularity, Beipu Old Street sees a lot of tourists on weekends and holidays. There are seven historical monuments in just a short 200-meter stretch of the old street, making it the place with the highest density of historical monuments in Taiwan, attracting many people to come here. Locally produced dried persimmon cakes are popular among tourists and have become a must-have gift for their unique taste and aroma. On Beipu’s Old Street, not only can you taste Hakka cuisine made with fresh local agricultural specialty products and Hakka Lei tea, you can also feel the simple Hakka style and experience the local culture. Beipu has become a popular place for sightseeing in recent years.