Taiwan

Region: East & Southeast Asia

Official language: Mandarin Chinese

Population: 23,595,274(2024 est.)

Nationality: Taiwan (noun), Taiwan (or Taiwanese) (adjective)

Land area: 32,260 sq km (12,456 sq miles)

Water area: 3,720 sq km (1,436 sq miles)

Capital: Taipei

National anthem: "Zhonghua Minguo guoge" (National Anthem of the Republic of China), by Hu Han-Min, Tai Chi-T'Ao, And Liao Chung-K'Ai/Cheng Mao-Yun

National holiday: Republic Day (Anniversary of the Chinese Revolution), October 10 (1911)

Population growth: 0.03% (2024 est.)

Time zone: UTC +8

Flag: The flag of the Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, consists of a red background and a blue canton (upper hoist, or left, quarter). Within the blue canton is a white sun with twelve triangular points around its circumference. The flag bears the common name of Clear Sky, White Sun, and the Entire Earth Red.

Independence: Taiwan came under Chinese control after World War II. Taiwan functions under its own democratic government, though it does not have formal independence from China.

Government type: semi-presidential republic

Suffrage: 20 years of age; universal

Legal system: civil law system

Taiwan is a large East Asian island in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of mainland China. Several smaller islands (the Pescadores, Quemoy, and Matsu) are included with the island of Taiwan as a political entity.

Known to the Western world until 1945 as Formosa (beautiful), Taiwan was first explored by the Portuguese in 1517 and was subsequently occupied by the Dutch, the Chinese, and the Japanese. After Japan's defeat in World War II, the island was ceded to China and officially became the province of Taiwan in 1947.

At the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, General Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist army, defeated by Mao Zedong's Communist forces, fled the Chinese mainland for Taiwan. About 2 million civilian refugees from all across China joined the Nationalists. Chiang established a government in exile, which in 1952 was officially named the Government of the Republic of China. Mainland China rejects this name (along with any sovereignty for Taiwan) and views Taiwan as a "renegade province."

People and Culture

Population: In 2022, more than 95 percent of Taiwan's population was Han Chinese, including the Holo, Hakka, and other peoples. Most of the population is descended from nineteenth-century immigrants from mainland China. An estimated 2.3 percent of the population belongs to the sixteen recognized indigenous Austronesian groups native to Taiwan and its islands.

The official language of Taiwan is Mandarin Chinese, although many other Chinese dialects are also spoken. These include Taiwanese (also known as Min, Min Nan, or Minnan; introduced from the mainland in the seventeenth century), and several Hakka dialects dating from the same migration period. There are about sixteen indigenous languages spoken on the island.

The religion of many of Taiwan's people is an amalgam of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. According to official 2005 estimates, 35.3 percent were Buddhist and 33.2 percent Daoist. The Taiwanese government stated that those proportions remained largely unchanged in the late 2010s. The US government noted in 2021 that I Kuan Tao, Christianity, World Maitreya Great Tao, Sunni Islam, Tien Ti Chiao (Heaven Emperor Religion), Tien Te Chiao (Heaven Virtue Religion), Li-ism, Hsuan Yuan Chiao (Yellow Emperor Religion), Tian Li Chiao (Tenrikyo), Pre-cosmic Salvationism, Scientology, Baha’i, Jehovah’s Witness, the Mahikari religion, and Mormonism all have adherents in Taiwan as well.

Taiwan's population density is high, and farmland is scarce because of the mountains; most people are urban, living in multistory apartments. The largest cities are New Taipei City; Taipei, the capital; Taoyuan; and Kaohsiung.

Indigenous People: Taiwan's government recognizes sixteen aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, each with a distinctive history and culture. Few of the groups seem closely connected to other groups. They are identifiable, however, as members of the Austronesian language group scattered from Madagascar to Easter Island and New Zealand. Some scholars believe that this language group originated in Taiwan.

There has been a cultural and linguistic revival among Hakkas, a minority group that migrated from mainland China to Taiwan centuries ago. There are five Hakka dialects spoken in Taiwan; two are nearing extinction.

On Lanyu, 62 kilometers (38 miles) off Taiwan's southeast coast, the aboriginal Yami people traditionally live in underground houses to avoid typhoons, speak their own language, grow taro and sweet potatoes, and catch fish.

Education: Beginning in 2014, children in Taiwan have been required to attend six years of elementary school, followed by three years of junior high school and three years of senior high or vocational training.

Education in Taiwan has changed little from the system available under the Japanese until 1947: the Nationalist government retained the system while eliminating the systemic discrimination Japan practiced against the Taiwanese.

Taiwan's school admissions examinations have been regarded as notoriously high stress and often blamed for teenage suicide. In the 2010s reform efforts seeking to de-emphasize rote memorization began. Admissions tests administered after junior high determine placement in academically challenging senior high schools, vocational schools, or five-year junior college. After completing secondary education, students face a second battery of admissions tests to determine eligibility for colleges, universities, and institutes of technology.

There are numerous private colleges and universities in Taiwan. The literacy rate in 2014 was 98.5 percent.

Health Care: In 1995, Taiwan created a mandatory National Health Insurance Program (NHIP). Each year, citizens and legal residents pay graduated, income-based insurance premiums to the government at rates revised every five years.

NHIP covers physician care, hospital costs, prescription medicines and some over-the-counter medications, lab and X-ray charges, dentistry, traditional Chinese medicine, and certain home care and day care services. Patients are charged a co-payment for each service. Physicians often live in apartments above storefront clinics, making their services available to patients after hours.

Life expectancy in Taiwan has increased greatly in recent history. In 2023, the estimated average life expectancy was 81.6 years. The infant mortality rate is 3.8 deaths per 1,000 births (2024 estimate).

Food: Cuisine from every region in China is available in Taiwan; its people come from every province in China, bringing their tastes and culinary skills with them. On Taiwan, however, seafood assumes more importance than it has on the mainland.

Native Taiwanese cuisine, now popular with all residents, is different from mainland cuisine in several ways. Meals are built around congee, an inexpensive, flavorful and nutritious staple based on watery rice blended with sweet potato, taro, or other root vegetables. Side dishes are added, often with unusual blends of ingredients, including stir-fried fish and peanuts, tofu, black beans, and pickled vegetables. An omelet made with pickled radishes is also a favorite dish.

Taiwanese cuisine is the only Chinese cuisine incorporating Japanese miso, a paste of fermented soybeans. In addition to fish and other seafood such as squid and octopus, meats commonly found in Taiwanese food include chicken, pork, lamb, and frog. Beef is less common.

Arts & Entertainment: Chinese opera and Taiwanese opera are central to Taiwan's cultural life, incorporating traditional stories, music, and costumes.

Chinese music employs mainly stringed instruments and flutes. In addition to concerts of traditional Chinese music, however, Taiwanese orchestras regularly present the classical European repertoire.

Taiwan has an internationally known film industry. Taiwanese director Ang Lee found notable success outside his native country with such films as Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Hulk (2003), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and Life of Pi (2012). Most of the country's films are based on novels and short stories written and published in Taiwan. In spite of their quality and diversity, however, Taiwan's writers are little read by the rest of the world.

In 2003, the National Museum of Taiwanese Literature opened in Taiwan. Its mission was to preserve not only Taiwanese literary traditions, but Japanese and Mandarin literature as well.

Tai chi is performed as an early morning ritual throughout Taiwan, both for health and for the beauty of the ritual body motions. Groups gather to perform in city parks, also popular gathering places for folk dancing, Chinese chess competitions, and tea ceremonies.

Today, karaoke (also called KTV) is Taiwan's most popular recreation. Older women, especially, often enjoy the game mah jong. Young Taiwanese enjoy ping pong, soccer, basketball, and badminton. There are several golf clubs in Taipei.

Holidays: Republic Day (October 10) is Taiwan's national holiday, commemorating the Chinese Revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen in 1911. It is celebrated in Taipei with fireworks and a light show. Peace Memorial Day takes place at the end of February, Tomb Sweeping Day and Children's Day in early April, and the Mid-Autumn Festival in early October.

Holidays based on the lunar calendar include Chinese New Year , the Lantern Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, and the Hungry Ghosts Festival. During the Hungry Ghosts Festival, when ghosts walk, no one travels who can avoid it and no marriages take place. Visiting temples is recommended.

Environment and Geography

Topography: Taiwan lies approximately 320 kilometers (200 miles) north of the Philippine island of Luzon. It is separated from the southeastern coast of China by the Taiwan Strait, which varies in width from 145 to 355 kilometers (90 to 220 miles). Taiwan is also bordered by the East China, Philippine, and South China Seas.

Taiwan is dominated by volcanic mountains, small hills, plateaus, and coastal plains. Two-thirds of the island is mountainous. The rugged Central Mountain range follows the length of the eastern coastline, sometimes ending in steep cliffs at the shore. The highest mountain in the range, Yu Shan, reaches 3,952 meters (12,966 feet) above sea level.

West of the mountains, land slopes gradually through rolling plains to sea level and fertile mud flats along the western shore. Taiwan also contains extensive wetlands, including swamps, lakes, ponds, tidal marshes, and estuaries.

Natural Resources: Taiwan contains limited deposits of coal and natural gas, as well as limestone, marble, and asbestos. Fish and seafood remain important natural resources. The island's farmland and forests are either too limited or not easily exploited. In the twenty-first century, Taiwan's chief economic resource lies in its skilled labor force.

In recent years, Taiwan's citizens have increasingly recognized the island's environmental value, setting aside considerable areas of land as protected areas that include national parks, nature reserves, forest reserves, coastal reserves, and wildlife refuges).

Because of the proliferation of factories along the flat western shoreline, wetlands have been endangered by water pollution and industrial emissions. Other environmental threats include air pollution, raw sewage, low-level radio-active waste disposal, and contamination of drinking water supplies. Moreover, an underground trade in endangered animal species still exists.

Plants & Animals: More than half of Taiwan is covered by thick forests, predominantly cypress trees. In addition to abundant freshwater fish and bird species, the island is home to roughly tens of thousands of species of insects, many of which are unique to Taiwan.

The tropical interior is a jungle; at one time, the camphor forest found there was the largest in the world. Other trees and plants found growing naturally in the jungle include palms, teak, pines, tree ferns, bamboo, bananas, soap trees, azaleas and rhododendrons. Commercially cultivated plants include coffee, tobacco, indigo, and cassava.

Although a surprising amount of Taiwan remains ecologically pristine, many species and environments are endangered, and some have been destroyed. The Formosan clouded leopard is now presumed extinct in Taiwan. Formosan Sika deer, green tree frogs, landlocked salmon, and Formosan black bears were once common but are now rare. Waterfowl remain plentiful, but some species, like the blackfaced spoonbill, are nearing extinction.

Climate: The warm ocean currents surrounding Taiwan, as well as its proximity to the Tropic of Cancer, give the island a subtropical climate moderated by seasonal winds. The average winter temperature is 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit), and the average summer temperature is 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).

Taiwan's mountains shelter the western plain, creating an essentially tropical climate with an average annual rainfall of approximately 2,500 millimeters (100 inches), most of which falls during monsoon season, from June to August. In the mountains themselves, it snows in winter and can be cold even in summer; the mountains also receive more rainfall.

Cloudy skies are normal all year. Taiwan is vulnerable to landslides, typhoons, and earthquakes. In 1999, one of the worst earthquakes in its history killed two thousand people and caused extensive damage, leaving 100,000 unsheltered.

Economy

Taiwan has a strong capitalist economy. It remained largely stable in the late 1990s as the Asian financial crisis caused many other countries to sink into recession. Taiwan relies on China as its largest export partner. In 2010, Taiwan and China signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, which enabled Taiwan to sign trade deals with nations with which it did not have formal diplomatic relations. Some parts of the agreement have stalled, however, and its future is uncertain. In 2016, President Tsai Ing-wen promoted the New Southbound Policy initiative to increase economic integration with South and Southeast Asia; the government also stated an interest in joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

In 2019, the gross domestic product (GDP, purchasing power parity) was estimated at $1.143 trillion, with a per capita GDP of $47,800. The unemployment rate was 3.73 percent of a workforce of more than 11.49 million (2019 estimates). The majority of people work in services and industry.

Despite tensions between China and Taiwan, many Taiwanese do business with mainland China, with heavy investment in Chinese enterprises. Direct flights from Beijing to Taiwan, without stops in Hong Kong, began in 2005.

Industry: Taiwan's industries include the manufacture of electronics, computer goods, chemicals, iron and steel, machinery, cement, textiles, vehicles, and pharmaceuticals. Other industrial activities include petroleum refining and food processing.

Taiwan's major exports include electrical and electronic equipment, metals, plastics, rubber products, and chemicals. In addition to China, major trading partners are Hong Kong, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. Taiwan is also a regional hub for the illegal trade of heroin and methamphetamines.

Agriculture: Taiwan's agriculture, largely for domestic consumption, includes rice, fruits, vegetables, and tea. Pigs and poultry are raised for meat. Only a little over one-quarter of the island's area, concentrated mostly on the western plains, is used for farming.

Tourism: Urban Taiwanese are Taiwan's own best tourists, often traveling to the mountains or beaches on summer weekends. Popular sites include Alishan, a mountain resort from which one ascends picturesque Chu Shan or Yu Shan, Taiwan's highest mountain. In Tienhsiang, not far from Taipei, tourists visit Taroka Gorge, which features 19 kilometers (12 miles) of sheer cliffs dropping down to a river of whitewater rapids.

Maolin, another mountain village, is surrounded by waterfalls, suspension bridges, and river walks. Nearby is Dona, an aboriginal village, and Dona Hot Springs, a natural spa.

Historic Tainan, the former capital, is a Buddhist pilgrimage center, remarkable for its hundreds of architecturally distinctive temples. Frequent religious parades and festivals take place in Tainan.

The small islands surrounding Taiwan are popular summer destinations. The sixty-four-island archipelago of Penghu offers sandy beaches, grasslands, and fishing villages. Taiwan's oldest temple is in Makung, the only city in the archipelago.

Government

Taiwan is a constitutional multiparty democracy. Its constitution was adopted in 1946 and took effect the following year. The government has three branches.

The executive branch consists of the president, who acts as chief of state, and the vice president, as well as the President of the Executive Yuan (or premier, who is the head of government) and the Vice President of the Executive Yuan (vice premier).

The legislative branch is the one-house Legislative Yuan, with 113 members. Overseas Chinese citizens and aboriginal peoples are represented in the legislature. All legislators serve four-year terms. The Supreme Court consists of justices appointed by the president and approved by the Legislative Yuan.

For local governance, Taiwan has thirteen xian (counties), three shi (cities), and six special municipalities.

In spite of its constitution and full government structure, Taiwan is in a unique position. Its government in 1949 was that of the Republic of China in exile, and anti-communist nations accepted that designation. Today, however, not even the island's closest allies offend the mainland Chinese government in Beijing by using that name. Although Taiwan, as "the Republic of China," once sat on the United Nations Security Council, it lost that seat to the Chinese government in Beijing and is no longer a member of the United Nations.

In 2005, China passed legislation outlawing any movement of a Chinese province to secede. The threat of force against Taiwan was widely considered implicit.

In 2024, Taiwanese voters choose pro-sovereignty candidate William Lai as president. The move angers Beijing, which issues a statement after the results insisting that "Taiwan is part of China".

Interesting Facts

• Taiwan's national anthem sets music to words from a speech by Chinese leader Sun Yat-Sen. He was translating words from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: "Government of the people, by the people and for the people."
• The popular drink known as bubble tea, or boba, originated in Taiwan. It combines flavored iced tea with tapioca pearls or coconut jelly, and is sipped through a wide straw.
• Taiwan is the largest economy and largest population that is not a member of the United Nations.

Bibliography

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Huang, Junjie, and Chun-Chieh Huang. Taiwan in Transformation: Retrospect and Prospect. 2nd ed., Transaction, 2014.

Mason, Colin. A Short History of Asia. 3rd ed., Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

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"Taiwan Country Profile." BBC News, 15 Jan 2024, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16164639. Accessed 6 Jan. 2025.

“Taiwan: Learning Systems.” Center on International Education Benchmarking, National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), ncee.org/what-we-do/center-on-international-education-benchmarking/top-performing-countries/taiwan-overview/taiwan-learning-systems. Accessed 9 Oct. 2020. ‌

“2020 Report on International Religious Freedom: Taiwan.” US Department of State, 12 May 2021, www.state.gov/reports/2020-report-on-international-religious-freedom/taiwan/. Accessed 18 Aug. 2022.