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Portal:Taiwan

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Introduction

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, lies between the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. It has an area of 35,808 square kilometres (13,826 square miles), with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds and plains in the western third, where its highly urbanized population is concentrated. The combined territories under ROC control consist of 168 islands in total covering 36,193 square kilometres (13,974 square miles). The largest metropolitan area is formed by Taipei (the capital), New Taipei City, and Keelung. With around 23.9 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the most densely populated countries.

Taiwan has been settled for at least 25,000 years. Ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the island around 6,000 years ago. In the 17th century, large-scale Han Chinese immigration began under a Dutch colony and continued under the Kingdom of Tungning, the first predominantly Han Chinese state in Taiwanese history. The island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China and ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. The Republic of China, which had overthrown the Qing in 1912 under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen, took control following the surrender of Japan in 1945. The immediate resumption of the Chinese Civil War resulted in the loss of the Chinese mainland to Communist forces, who established the People's Republic of China, and the flight of the ROC central government to Taiwan in 1949. The effective jurisdiction of the ROC has since been limited to Taiwan, Penghu, and smaller islands.

The early 1960s saw rapid economic growth and industrialization called the "Taiwan Miracle". In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ROC transitioned from a one-party state under martial law to a multi-party democracy, with democratically elected presidents beginning in 1996. Taiwan's export-oriented economy is the 21st-largest in the world by nominal GDP and the 20th-largest by PPP measures, with a focus on steel, machinery, electronics, and chemicals manufacturing. Taiwan is a developed country. It is ranked highly in terms of civil liberties, healthcare, and human development.

The political status of Taiwan is contentious. Despite being a founding member, the ROC no longer represents China as a member of the United Nations after UN members voted in 1971 to recognize the PRC instead. The ROC maintained its claim of being the sole legitimate representative of China and its territory until 1991, when it ceased to regard the Chinese Communist Party as a rebellious group and acknowledged its control over mainland China. Taiwan is claimed by the PRC, which refuses to establish diplomatic relations with countries that recognise the ROC. Taiwan maintains official diplomatic relations with 11 out of 193 UN member states and the Holy See. Many others maintain unofficial diplomatic ties through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates. International organizations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate on a non-state basis. Domestically, the major political contention is between parties favoring eventual Chinese unification and promoting a pan-Chinese identity, contrasted with those aspiring to formal international recognition and promoting a Taiwanese identity; in the 21st century, both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal. (Full article...)

Clockwise from the top: A night view of Xiying Rainbow Bridge, Zhongyang Old Street, Qimei Double-Heart of Stacked Stones, Baisha Beach, Penghu Tianhou Temple, Budai Harbor

The Penghu (/ˈpʌŋˈh/ PUNG-HOO, Hokkien POJ: Phîⁿ-ô͘  or Phêⁿ-ô͘ ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, about 50 km (31 mi) west of the main island of Taiwan across the Penghu Channel, covering an area of 141 square kilometers (54 sq mi). The archipelago collectively forms Penghu County of Taiwan and is the smallest county of Taiwan. The largest city is Magong, on the largest island, which is also named Magong.

The Penghu islands first appear in the historical record in the Tang dynasty and were inhabited by Chinese people under the Southern Song dynasty, during which they were attached to Jinjiang County of Fujian. The archipelago was formally incorporated as an administrative unit of China in 1281 under Tong'an County of Jiangzhe Province in the Yuan dynasty. It continued to be controlled by Imperial China with brief European occupations by the Dutch Empire (1622–1624) and Second French colonial empire (1885), until it was ceded to the Japanese Empire in 1895. Since the end of World War II, Penghu has been governed by the Republic of China (ROC). Under the terms of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the subsequent Taiwan Relations Act between the ROC and the United States, Penghu is defined and geographically acknowledged as part of Taiwan. (Full article...)

Selected biography

Chiau Wen-yan (Chinese: 邱文彥; pinyin: Qiū Wényàn: born 17 July 1953) is a Taiwanese politician. He was the member of Legislative Yuan, a professor and the former director of the Institute of Marine Affairs and Resource Management at National Taiwan Ocean University. (Full article...)

Selected picture - show another

Chen Cheng-po was a Taiwanese painter whose oil painting Street of Chiayi was the first painting of a Taiwanese artist displayed in the Empire Art Exhibition in Japan. Chen was captured and killed by the Kuomintang government as a result of the 228 Incident.

Illustration credit: Chen Cheng-po

Good article - show another

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

A sample of pe̍h-ōe-jī text

Pe̍h-ōe-jī (Taiwanese Hokkien: [pe˩ˀ o̯e̞˩ d͡ʑi˧] , English approximation: /pwˈ/ pay-way-JEE; abbr. POJ; lit.'vernacular writing'), sometimes known as Church Romanization, is an orthography used to write variants of Hokkien Southern Min, particularly Taiwanese and Amoy Hokkien, and it is widely employed as one of the writing systems for Southern Min. During its peak, it had hundreds of thousands of readers.

Developed by Western missionaries working among the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia in the 19th century and refined by missionaries working in Xiamen and Tainan, it uses a modified Latin alphabet and some diacritics to represent the spoken language. After initial success in Fujian, POJ became most widespread in Taiwan and, in the mid-20th century, there were over 100,000 people literate in POJ. A large amount of printed material, religious and secular, has been produced in the script, including Taiwan's first newspaper, the Taiwan Church News. (Full article...)

Acer's logo since 2011.
Acer's logo since 2011.
  • ... that Acer (pictured) is ranked as one of the world's top five branded PC vendors and has a history dating to 1976?
  • ... that Taipei was the first city in the world to roll out a city-wide Wi-Fi network with 4,000 hot spots serving a city population of 2.6 million?

General images

The following are images from various Taiwan-related articles on Wikipedia.

On this day...

In the news

7 December 2024 – Cross-strait relations, Chinese intelligence activity abroad
Prosecutors in Taiwan charge four soldiers with espionage, accusing the soldiers of passing photographs of Taiwan's military capability to Chinese agents in exchange for money between 2022 and 2024. (DW) (The Standard)
16 November 2024 – APEC Peru 2024
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping for their final meeting before Biden leaves office on January 20th. During the meeting, Biden and Xi talk about topics like cyber crime, trade, Taiwan, and Russia. Xi also said that his team will work with the incoming Trump administration. (Reuters)

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East Asia

Southeast Asia

Portals listed here are related to Taiwan by way of history, Asian region, diplomatic relations with ROC, and significant diaspora of overseas Taiwanese

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