Taiwan

more...

Home
Africa
Asia
Albania
Austria
Belgium & Colonies
Bhutan
Bulgaria
China
Collections/ Mixture
Croatia
Czechoslovakia
Denmark/ Faroe Is
Estonia/ Latvia/ Lithuania
Europe
Finland
France & Colonies
Germany & Colonies
Greece
Greenland
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Italy & Area
Japan
Korea
Laos
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Monaco
Mongolia
Nepal
Netherlands & Colonies
Norway
Other Asian Stamps
Other European Stamps
Philippines
Poland
Portugal & Colonies
Romania
Russia & Area
Spain & Colonies
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Vietnam
Yugoslavia
Commonwealth/ British...
Great Britain
Ireland
Latin America
Middle East
Philately/ Postal History
Rest of the World
Thematics
United States

Taiwan (Traditional Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; Simplified Chinese: 台湾; Hanyu Pinyin: Táiwān; Wade-Giles: T'ai-wan; Taiwanese: Tâi-oân) is an island in East Asia. "Taiwan" is also commonly used to refer to the territories administered by the Republic of China (ROC), a state whose effective area of administration consists of the island of Taiwan, Lanyu (Orchid Island) and Green Island in the Pacific off the Taiwan coast, the Pescadores in the Taiwan Strait, and Kinmen and Matsu off the southeast coast of the territories administered by the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The main island of Taiwan, sometimes also referred to as Formosa (from Portuguese, meaning "graceful"), is located at 22°57′N 120°12′E, off the coast of the territories administered by the People's Republic of China, south of Japan and north of the Philippines. It is bounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the South China Sea and the Luzon Strait, to the west by the Taiwan Strait and to the north by the East China Sea. The island is 394 kilometers (245 miles) long and 144 kilometers (89 miles) wide and consists of steep mountains covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation.

By the end of major fighting in the Chinese Civil War in 1950, the ROC had lost control of mainland China to the PRC. Since then, the ROC has been restricted to its present effective area of administration consisting of Taiwan and some neighboring islands. Today, the PRC and the ROC do not recognize each other, and the PRC considers all of the territories administered by the ROC as PRC territory, and vice versa. For more information on this dispute, see Political status of Taiwan.

History

Prehistory and early settlement

Evidence of human settlement in Taiwan dates back thirty thousand years, although the first inhabitants of Taiwan may have been genetically distinct from any groups currently on the island. About four thousand years ago, ancestors of current Taiwanese aborigines settled in Taiwan. These aborigines are genetically related to Malay and Polynesians, and linguists classify their language as Austronesian. Han Chinese began settling in the Pescadores 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 sixteenth century.

Read more at Wikipedia.org