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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 Dutch colonial rule 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 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 World War II. But with the loss of mainland China to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, the Republic of China moved to Taiwan in 1949 under the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT).

From the early 1960s, Taiwan saw rapid economic growth and industrialization known as 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 Despite being a founding member, the ROC no longer represents China as a member of the United Nations after UN members voted in 1971 to recognize the PRC instead.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 to be 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 the Pan-Blue Coalition, who favors eventual Chinese unification under the ROC and promoting a pan-Chinese identity, contrasted with the Pan-Green Coalition, which favors eventual Taiwanese independence and promoting a Taiwanese identity; in the 21st century, both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal. (Full article...)

Paiwan and Rukai people in Pingtung County

Taiwanese indigenous peoples, formerly called Taiwanese aborigines, are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, with the nationally recognized subgroups numbering about 600,303 or 3% of the island's population. This total is increased to more than 800,000 if the indigenous peoples of the plains in Taiwan are included, pending future official recognition. When including those of mixed ancestry, such a number is possibly more than a million. Academic research suggests that their ancestors have been living on Taiwan for approximately 15,000 years. A wide body of evidence suggests that the Taiwanese indigenous peoples had maintained regular trade networks with numerous regional cultures of Southeast Asia before Han Chinese settled on the island from the 17th century, at the behest of the Dutch colonial administration and later by successive governments towards the 20th century.

Taiwanese indigenous peoples are Austronesians, with linguistic, genetic and cultural ties to other Austronesian peoples. Taiwan is the origin and linguistic homeland of the oceanic Austronesian expansion, whose descendant groups today include the majority of the ethnic groups throughout many parts of East and Southeast Asia as well as Oceania and even Africa which includes Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, Philippines, Micronesia, Island Melanesia and Polynesia. (Full article...)

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Official portrait, 2016

Tsai Ing-wen (Chinese: 蔡英文; pinyin: Cài Yīngwén; born 31 August 1956) is a Taiwanese politician and legal scholar who served as the seventh president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2016 to 2024. A member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), she intermittently served as chair of the DPP from 2008 to 2012, 2014 to 2018, and 2020 to 2022. She was the first woman to hold the presidency in Taiwan’s history.

Tsai was born in Taipei and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in law from National Taiwan University and Cornell University, respectively. She went to England to study law at the London School of Economics, where she received a PhD in 1984, and became a law professor. In 1993, she was appointed to a series of governmental positions by the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party and was one of the chief drafters of the special state-to-state relations doctrine under President Lee Teng-hui. (Full article...)

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Cheng Yen Chen Yi (Kuomintang) Teresa Teng Tsai Wan-lin Wang Jinping (scholar and activist) Jay Chou Ang Lee S.H.E Lee Teng-hui Justin Huang Chiau Wen-yan Kao Chin Su-mei Latisha Chan Wu Nien-jen Wu Zhaonan

The Taiwan Confucian Temple in Tainan, Taiwan, is the oldest Confucian temple in Taiwan.

Photo credit: User:Rintojiang

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

A series of military actions and diplomatic moves were undertaken in 1635 and 1636 by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Dutch-era Taiwan (Formosa) aimed at subduing hostile aboriginal villages in the southwestern region of the island. Prior to the campaign the Dutch had been in Formosa for eleven years, but did not control much of the island beyond their principal fortress at Tayouan (present-day Anping, Tainan), and an alliance with the town of Sinkan. The other aboriginal villages in the area conducted numerous attacks on the Dutch and their allies, with the chief belligerents being the village of Mattau, whose inhabitants in 1629 ambushed and slaughtered a group of sixty Dutch soldiers.

After receiving reinforcements from the colonial headquarters at Batavia, the Dutch launched an attack in 1635 and were able to crush opposition and bring the area around present-day Tainan fully under their control. After seeing that Mattau and Soulang, the most powerful villages in the area, were overpowered by Dutch force overwhelmingly, many other villages in the surrounding area came to the Dutch to seek peace and surrender sovereignty. Thus the Dutch were able to dramatically expand the extent of their territorial control in a short time, and avoid the need for further fighting. The campaign ended in February 1636, when representatives from twenty-eight villages attended a ceremony in Tayouan to cement Dutch sovereignty. (Full article...)

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Chen Chi-mai EVA Air Chai Trong-rong Taiwan High Speed Rail Pe̍h-ōe-jī Mei-Ann Chen Hsu Tain-tsair You Are the Apple of My Eye

... that Longshan Temple (pictured) is the oldest temple in Taipei, originally built by settlers from Fujian Province in 1738 and is an example of classical Taiwanese architecture?

... that Taiwan Grand Shrine was once the largest and most important Shinto shrine in Taiwan but was destroyed in a fire in 1944. Did you also know that the Grand Hotel in Taipei was built in its place?

... that Taipei Grand Mosque is the largest mosque in Taiwan and that there are over 140,000 Muslims residing in Taiwan?

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

Image 1Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at the Cairo Conference in Cairo, 25 November 1943. (from History of Taiwan)
Image 2Bird's eye view of Fort Zeelandia in Dutch Formosa in the 17th-century (from History of Taiwan)
Image 3Sky Lantern festival in Pingxi, Taiwan (from Culture of Taiwan)
Image 4Statue of Chen Di in Lianjiang County (from History of Taiwan)
Image 5Conquest of Douliumen (Zhuluo) (from History of Taiwan)
Image 6Map of Taiwan with the western coast pointed downwards, c. 1640 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 7Section of Kangxi period painting of Taiwan, 1684–1722 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 8Portrait of Zheng Jing (1642–1681), possibly 17th c. (from History of Taiwan)
Image 9Territory controlled by Koxinga, founder of the Kingdom of Tungning (from History of Taiwan)
Image 10Administrative units of Taiwan under the Qing dynasty in 1685 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 11Japanese painting of the expedition forces attacking the Mudan tribe, 1874 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 12The original flag of the Taiwanese People's Party, 2 January 1929 – 6 October 1929 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 13Map of Asia showing the "Chinese Empire" (1892) (from History of Taiwan)
Image 14Zheng Keshuang (from History of Taiwan)
Image 15The Dharmachakra represents the Noble Eightfold Path. (from Culture of Taiwan)
Image 16Map showing the Revolt of the Three Feudatories (1673–1681) (from History of Taiwan)
Image 17Depiction of Qing ships crossing the ocean to suppress the Lin Shuangwen rebellion, 1787–1788 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 18Chinese depiction of Chikan (Fort Provintia), 1752 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 19Population density map of Taiwan in 2019 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 20A map of the Empire of Japan including Taiwan ("barbarian land" in red) in 1895 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 21Entrance hall of a K-TV in Taipei (from Culture of Taiwan)
Image 22Original geographic distributions of Taiwanese aboriginal peoples (from History of Taiwan)
Image 23Kagi Shrine, one of many Shinto shrines built in Taiwan. (from History of Taiwan)
Image 24Administrative units of Taiwan under the Qing dynasty by 1894 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 25Taiwan in the 17th century, showing Dutch (magenta) and Spanish (green) possessions, and the Kingdom of Middag (orange) (from History of Taiwan)
Image 26Yin and Yang symbol of Taoism (from Culture of Taiwan)
Image 27Taichung Middle School in 1919 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 28Bunun dancer in traditional aboriginal dress (1989) (from Culture of Taiwan)
Image 29Departure of a Ryukyuan ship bearing tribute to Beijing, 1831 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 30The Capture of Lin Shuangwen (from History of Taiwan)
Image 31Pearl milk tea (from Culture of Taiwan)
Image 32The Qing Empire in 1820, with provinces in yellow, military governorates and protectorates in light yellow, tributary states in orange. (from History of Taiwan)
Image 33Depiction of a Chinese man, woman, and soldier, by Georg Franz Müller (1646–1723) (from History of Taiwan)
Image 34Two 7-Eleven stores opposite each other on a crossroad. Taiwan has the highest density of 7-Eleven stores per person in the world (from Culture of Taiwan)
Image 35Photo from Savages of Formosa, a 1926 government report on tribal life in Taiwan (from History of Taiwan)
Image 36Section of a painting depicting daily life of the Taokas people, 1684–1722 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 37Takasago Volunteers in October 1944 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 381901 map with red line marking approximate boundary separating territory under actual Japanese administration from "Savage District" (from History of Taiwan)
Image 39Siege of Fort Zeelandia (from History of Taiwan)
Image 40The Imperial Guard Defeats the Enemy in Hard Fighting at Keelung on the Island of Taiwan, 1895 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 41Administrative units of Taiwan under the Qing dynasty in 1734 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 42Severed heads of Seediq rebels (from History of Taiwan)
Image 43Evacuation of Keelung by the French forces, image created 1887 (from History of Taiwan)
Image 44Woodcut of the mass killings which took place during the February 28 Incident (from History of Taiwan)
Image 45Apo Hsu and the NTNU Symphony Orchestra on stage in the National Concert Hall in Taipei and Play Saint-Saens's Organ Symphony No. 3 (from Culture of Taiwan)
Image 46Mid-17th century portrait of Koxinga (Guoxingye or "Kok seng ia" in southern Fujianese), "Lord of the Imperial Surname" (from History of Taiwan)
Image 47Shi Lang (1621–1696) in an 18th-century painting (from History of Taiwan)

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The Republic of China government governs 22 administrative divisions
The administrative divisions presently consist of 13 counties, 6 special municipalities and three cities.


Chiayi City	Chiayi County	Changhua County	Hsinchu City	Hsinchu County

Hualian County	Kaohsiung City	Keelung City	Kinmen Country	Lienchang County

Miaoli County	Nantou County	New Taipei City	Penghu County	Pingtung County

Taichung City	Tainan City	Taipei City	Taitung County	Taoyuan City

Yilan County	Yunlin County

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

You are cordially invited to join and contribute to WikiProject Taiwan, a WikiProject dedicated to the development and improvement of articles relating to Taiwan.

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