Taiwan

This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.


Taiwan
臺灣
台灣
Taiwan is mostly mountainous in the east, with gently sloping plains in the west. The Penghu Islands are west of Taiwan.

Geography
Location Pacific Ocean, 120 km (74.6 mi) off the coast of mainland China
Coordinates 23°46′N 121°0′E / 23.767°N 121°E / 23.767; 121
Area 35,980 km² (13,892 sq mi)
Area rank 38th
Highest elevation 3,952 m (12,966 ft)
Highest point Yushan (Jade Mountain)
Country

Capital city Taipei
Largest city Taipei (pop. 2,619,920)
Demographics
Demonym Taiwanese
Population 23,046,177 (as of 2009)
Density 668 /km² (1,730 /sq mi)
Ethnic groups

98% Han
 70% Hoklo
 14% Hakka
 14% Waishengren

2% Taiwanese aborigines



Taiwan
Traditional Chinese 臺灣 or 台灣
Simplified Chinese 台湾
Transliterations
Hakka
- Romanization Thòi-vàn
Mandarin
- Hanyu Pinyin Táiwān
- Wade–Giles T'ai²-wan¹
- Gwoyeu Romatzyh Tairuan
Min
- Hokkien POJ Tâi-oân
- Min-dong BUC Dài-uăng
Wu
- Romanization [d̥e uɛ]
Cantonese
- Jyutping Toi⁴ Waan¹


Portuguese: (Ilha) Formosa
Traditional Chinese 福爾摩沙
Simplified Chinese 福尔摩沙
Literal meaning beautiful island
Transliterations
Mandarin
- Hanyu Pinyin fúěrmóshā
Cantonese
- Jyutping fuk¹ji⁵mo¹saa¹

Taiwan, also known as Formosa (from Portuguese: Ilha Formosa, "Beautiful Island"), is an island situated in East Asia in the Western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It has comprised most (99%) of the territory of the Republic of China (ROC) since the 1950s. The term "Taiwan" has also become a commonly used alternative name both domestically and internationally to refer to the entire country of Republic of China after the ROC lost international diplomatic recognition as "China" in the 1970s.

Separated from the Asian continent by the 120 kilometres (75 mi) wide Taiwan Strait, the main island of the group is 394 kilometres (245 mi) long and 144 kilometres (89 mi) wide. To the northeast are the main islands of Japan and the East China Sea, and the southern end of the Ryukyu Islands of Japan is directly to the east; the Philippines lie to its south across the Bashi Channel. The mountainous island spans the Tropic of Cancer and is covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation. Other minor islands and islets of the group include the Pescadores, Green Island, and Orchid Island as well as the Diaoyutai Islands (Senkaku-shotō) which have been controlled by Japan since the 1970s.

Taiwan has been governed by the Republic of China since 25 October 1945 when the Republic of China acquired Taiwan from the Empire of Japan as a result of World War II. Four years later the Republic of China lost mainland China in the Chinese Civil War to the Communists and retreated to Taiwan. Taiwan has composed the vast majority of the ROC's territory since the 1950s, and it is one of multiple reasons that the ROC is commonly known as "Taiwan". The political status of Taiwan is disputed because it is claimed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) which was established in 1949 on mainland China and considers itself the successor state to the ROC. Japan had originally acquired Taiwan from the Qing Empire in 1895 per Article 2 of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. At the end of World War II, Japan renounced all claims to sovereignty over its former colonial possessions, including Taiwan and Penghu (Pescadores), but did not specify to whom Taiwan and Penghu should be assigned. This fact and subsequent handling of Taiwan's sovereignty by the Allies of World War II led to the complex and unresolved issues of the legal and political status of Taiwan (See below).

Taiwan's rapid economic growth in the decades after World War II has transformed it into an advanced economy as one of the Four Asian Tigers. This economic rise is known as the Taiwan Miracle. It is categorized as an advanced economy by the IMF and high-income economy by the World Bank. Its technology industry plays a key role in the global economy. Taiwanese companies manufacture a large portion of the world's consumer electronics, although most of them are now made in their factories in mainland China.

Etymology

There are various names of Taiwan in use today, derived from explorers or rulers by each particular period. The former name "Formosa" means "beautiful" in Portuguese language, was given to Taiwan by the Portuguese when their explorers sailed past in the 16th century. In the early 17th century, when the Dutch East India Company came to build a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia (today's Tainan City), they allegedly adopted the name of an aboriginal tribe transliterated as "Tayouan" or "Teyowan" in their records.

History

Prehistory and early settlements

Evidence of human settlement in Taiwan dates back 30,000 years, although the first inhabitants of Taiwan may have been genetically distinct from any groups currently on the island. About 4,000 years ago, ancestors of current Taiwanese aborigines settled in Taiwan. These aborigines are genetically related to Malay and maternally to Polynesians, and linguists classify their languages as Austronesian. It is thought likely that Polynesian ancestry may be traceable throughout Taiwan.

Records from ancient China indicate that the Han Chinese might have known of the existence of the main island of Taiwan since the Three Kingdoms period (third century, 230 A.D.), having assigned offshore islands in the vicinity names like Greater Liuqiu and Lesser Liuqiu (etymologically, but perhaps not semantically, identical to Ryūkyū in Japanese), though none of these names has been definitively matched to the main island of Taiwan. The Ming Dynasty admiral Cheng Ho (Zheng He) visited Taiwan in 1430.

Han Chinese began settling in the Penghu islands in the 1200s, but Taiwan's hostile tribes and its lack of the trade resources valued in that era rendered it unattractive to all but "occasional adventurers or fishermen engaging in barter" until the 16th century.

European settlement

In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the main island of Taiwan and named it Ilha Formosa, which means "Beautiful Island."

In 1624, the Dutch established a commercial base on Taiwan and began to import workers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores) as laborers, many of whom settled. The Dutch made Taiwan a colony with its colonial capital at Tayoan City (present day Anping, Tainan). Both Tayoan and the island name Taiwan derive from a word in Sirayan, one of the Formosan languages.

The Dutch military presence was concentrated at a stronghold called Castle Zeelandia. The Dutch colonists also started to hunt the native Formosan Sika deer (Cervus nippon taioanus) that inhabited Taiwan, contributing to the eventual extinction of the subspecies on the island. Furthermore, this contributed to the subsequent identification of native tribes.

In 1626, the Spanish landed on and occupied northern Taiwan (Keelong and Tanshui) as a base to extend its commercial trading. The colonial period lasted 16 years until 1642.

Kingdom of Tungning

Chinese naval and troop forces of Southern Fujian defeated the Dutch in 1662, subsequently expelling the Dutch government and military from the island. They were led by Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong). Following the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Koxinga retreated to Taiwan as a self-styled Ming loyalist and established the Kingdom of Tungning (1662–1683). Koxinga established his capital at Tainan and he and his heirs, Zheng Jing, who ruled from 1662 to 1682, and Zheng Keshuang, who served less than a year, continued to launch raids on the south-east coast of mainland China well into the Qing Dynasty, attempting to recapture mainland China.

Qing Dynasty rule

In 1683, following the defeat of Koxinga's grandson by an armada led by Admiral Shi Lang of Southern Fujian, the Qing formally annexed Taiwan, placing it under the jurisdiction of Fujian province. The Qing government tried to reduce piracy and vagrancy in the area, issuing a series of edicts to manage immigration and respect aboriginal land rights. Immigrants mostly from Southern Fujian continued to enter Taiwan. The border between taxpaying lands and "savage" lands shifted eastward, with some aborigines 'Sinicizing' while others retreated into the mountains. During this time, there were a number of conflicts between Chinese from different regions of Southern Fujian, and between Southern Fujian Chinese and aborigines.

Northern Taiwan and the Penghu Islands were the scene of an important subsidiary campaign in the Sino-French War (August 1884 to April 1885). The French occupied Keelung from 1 October 1884 to 22 June 1885 and the Penghu Islands from 31 March to 22 July 1885. A French attempt to capture Tamsui was defeated at the Battle of Tamsui (8 October 1884). Several battles were fought around Keelung between October 1884 and March 1885 between Liu Ming-ch'uan's Army of Northern Taiwan and Colonel Jacques Duchesne's Formosa Expeditionary Corps. The Keelung Campaign, despite some notable French tactical victories, ended in a stalemate. The Pescadores Campaign was a French victory, but had no long-term consequences. The French evacuated both Keelung and the Penghu archipelago at the end of the war.