Taipei? Taibei?

Recently there's a question that really intrigues me. Why is Taipei not "Taibei"? It's actually the first time that came across my mind. I've never used the spelling of "Taibei" as far as I can remember, not that it's not correct(the sounds are definitely correct), because in the pin-yin system this is how you spell it in order to spell for the character "臺北 / 台北(táibĕi)". But the thing is, I just don't think I live in Taibei at the moment. After all, the word isn't just a sound, it's a city with some history behind it.

Let's see how people in the world pronounce this city's name:

Tā'īpa'e	تائی پئے	Urdu
Taibei		English
Taibei	ტაიბეი	Georgian
Taibei	臺北 / 台北	Chinese
Taibėjus		Lithuanian
Taipé Taipei		Portuguese French* (thanks to Ronan's correction)
Taipeh		German
Taipei		Dutch, English
Taïpéi	Ταϊπέι	Greek
Taipei	台北 / タイペイ	Japanese
Taipei	타이페이	Korean
Taipeja		Latvian
Tajbèj	Тайбэй	Belarussian, Russian
Tajpe	Тайпе	Bulgarian
Tajpej		Hungarian, Polish
Tajpeo		Esperanto
Tāybāy	تايباي / تايباى	Arabic
Tāybay	تايبي / تايبى	Arabic
Täybey	ﺗﻪﻳﺒﯧﻲ	Uyghur
Ṭaype	טייפה	Hebrew
Tāype	تايپې	Pashtu
Tāype	تایپه	Persian
Taypey		Turkish
Thaipē	ไทเป	Thai

(Source: http://www.archinform.net/ort/5192.htm?ID=C76BsqVEWQx9qX4T)

Or you can try Google "taibei" and see what turns out. It actually asks me "Did you mean to search for: taipei "

Wan An!