47 Fun Facts About Taiwan

Which river in central Taiwan, about 186 kilometres long, is the island's longest?

The Zhuoshui River carries so much silt that its water stays murky all year, which is how it got its name: Zhuoshui means 'turbid water'.

Which sea washes Taiwan's eastern coast?

The Philippine Sea meets Taiwan's steep east coast, while the strait on the western side is so shallow that it became a land bridge to Asia during the ice ages.

Which European trading company built Fort Zeelandia in south-western Taiwan from 1624?

The Dutch East India Company held the fort for 38 years, drove a rival Spanish colony out of northern Taiwan in 1642 and brought in Chinese labourers to grow rice and sugar.

Which Ming loyalist drove European colonists out of Taiwan in 1662 and founded the Kingdom of Tungning?

Koxinga, also known as Zheng Chenggong, won Taiwan after a nine-month siege but died within months, aged 37; his heirs held the island until a Qing fleet took it in 1683.

Which 1895 treaty, signed in a Japanese port, handed Taiwan to Japan?

The Treaty of Shimonoseki ceded Taiwan and the Penghu islands to Japan; when the news reached Taiwan, local leaders proclaimed a republic to resist the handover, but it proved short-lived.

Taiwan became the Nationalist government's refuge in December 1949 after it lost which conflict?

The Chinese Civil War ended on the mainland with a Communist victory in 1949; the defeated government moved its seat to Taipei that December, and more than a million soldiers and civilians followed it.

The February 28 incident of 1947 began with what event?

The shooting of a civilian followed a raid on a widow selling contraband cigarettes in Taipei: monopoly agents struck her, an officer fired into the angry crowd, and protests spread across the island.

Which measure did Taiwan's government lift in July 1987 after 38 years in force?

Martial law had been in force since 1949; activists founded the Democratic Progressive Party in defiance of it in 1986, and its end the next year lifted the bans on new parties and newspapers.

Who became the first Taiwan-born ROC president in 1988 and later won the first direct election?

Lee Teng-hui, a Cornell-trained agricultural economist, won the 1996 vote with a clear majority even though China fired missiles into nearby waters in a bid to scare voters away from him.

Which organisation voted in October 1971 to give China's seat to Beijing instead of Taipei?

The United Nations seated Beijing under Resolution 2758; Taipei's delegates, whose government was a founding member with a permanent Security Council seat, walked out as the vote went against them.

Under what name does Taiwan compete at the Olympic Games?

Chinese Taipei became the Olympic name under a 1981 agreement with the IOC, signed after Taiwan boycotted the 1980 Games over the issue; a 2018 referendum on competing as 'Taiwan' failed.

On 17 May 2019, Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalise what?

Same-sex marriage passed the legislature one week before a deadline set by the Constitutional Court, which had ruled in 2017 that barring it was unconstitutional; couples could register from 24 May.

Who won Taiwan's presidential election in January 2024?

Lai Ching-te won with about 40 percent in a three-way race, giving the DPP a third straight presidency, which no party had managed since direct elections began, even as it lost its majority in the legislature.

Whose design gave Taiwan's government five branches instead of three?

Sun Yat-sen proposed the five-power system, adding to the usual three an Examination Yuan to run civil-service tests and a Control Yuan to audit and impeach officials.

What did the Japanese call Taiwan's highest peak, a name later used in the coded order to attack Pearl Harbor?

Mount Niitaka means 'new high mountain': surveyors found the peak stood taller than Mount Fuji, and 'Climb Mount Niitaka' was the signal that set the Pearl Harbor attack in motion in December 1941.

Which peak, the highest in Taiwan, makes it the fourth-highest island in the world?

Yushan, or Jade Mountain, is out-topped only by summits on New Guinea, Hawaii and Borneo; it rose from the seabed as two tectonic plates collided, and that boundary is still active.

Which line of latitude passes through Taiwan?

The Tropic of Cancer crosses Taiwan through Chiayi and Hualien counties, splitting its climate: the north is subtropical with real seasons, while most of the south is tropical.

Which disaster struck central Taiwan in the early hours of 21 September 1999, killing more than 2,400 people?

An earthquake, known as the 921 or Jiji quake, toppled buildings as far away as Taipei; Taiwan now marks every 21 September as its national disaster-prevention day, with drills across the island.

Taipei 101 was the world's tallest building from 2004 until overtaken by which tower?

Burj Khalifa passed Taipei 101's height in 2007 while still under construction, then opened in Dubai in January 2010 at 828 metres, 320 metres taller than the tower it dethroned.

Taroko Gorge, carved by the Liwu River, cuts through which stone?

Marble lines the gorge because ancient seabed limestone was squeezed into marble as colliding plates lifted Taiwan, and the Liwu River kept cutting down through the rising rock.

Which lake, home to Taiwan's Thao people, opens to swimmers only for one mass crossing each autumn?

Sun Moon Lake is closed to swimmers all year except for its Swimming Carnival, a 3-kilometre crossing that draws entrants by the thousand; the Thao, who number under a thousand, live on its shore.

Many linguists trace which language family, spoken from Madagascar to Hawaii, back to Taiwan?

Austronesian languages span half the globe, yet in one leading classification all but one of the family's primary branches are found only in Taiwan, which is why many linguists place its homeland there.

Which ethnic group, native speakers of Taiwanese, makes up about 70% of Taiwan's population?

Hoklo people descend from migrants who crossed the strait from southern Fujian from the 17th century onward, bringing the Hokkien speech now known as Taiwanese.

Which chipmaker, founded in 1987 by Morris Chang, was the world's first dedicated semiconductor foundry?

TSMC makes chips only to other firms' designs, which let 'fabless' companies such as Apple and AMD sell chips without owning a factory; Philips and Taiwan's government put up the launch money.

Which city's science park, opened in 1980 on the model of Silicon Valley, became the home of Taiwan's chip industry?

Hsinchu Science Park was planned to draw Taiwanese engineers home from abroad, and the island's two leading chip foundries both grew out of a state research institute beside it.

Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore are three of the Four Asian Tigers; which economy is the fourth?

South Korea completes the Four Asian Tigers, economies whose export-led growth topped 7 percent a year from the 1960s and made all four high-income by the 1990s.

Which two Taiwanese companies are best known as personal computer makers?

Acer and Asus share roots: Asus was founded in 1989 by four engineers who had left Acer, and the two went on to compete as global PC brands.

What are the chewy 'pearls' in Taiwan's bubble tea made from?

Tapioca starch comes from the cassava root; by one teahouse's account the drink was born in 1988, when a manager at Taichung's Chun Shui Tang tipped her tapioca dessert into iced tea at a staff meeting.

Taiwan's red-braised beef noodle soup is traditionally credited to veterans from which Chinese province?

Sichuan veterans are credited in the best-known account, which is why the dish is sold as 'Sichuan-style' beef noodles, although it was created in Taiwan and is not a dish of Sichuan itself.

Which Taipei restaurant chain, now famous for soup dumplings, began in 1958 as a cooking-oil shop?

Din Tai Fung's founder sold cooking oil until tinned oil gutted his trade around 1970; on a friend's advice he gave half the shop over to xiaolongbao, which sold so well that the oil was dropped in 1972.

Taiwan's night-market snacks, often compared to tapas, go by which Mandarin name meaning 'small eats'?

Xiaochi are grazed a few small dishes at a time; night markets that began as small local gatherings are now whole streets of stalls selling them, with the oyster omelette a classic.

Traditionally, what is stinky tofu soaked in to develop its smell?

Brine of fermented vegetables, left to ripen for months, is the old-style soak, and some recipes add meat or dried shrimp; mass producers now dip fresh tofu in ready-made brine only briefly.

Which Taiwanese filmmaker directed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi?

Ang Lee spent six years out of work after film school, keeping house while his wife supported the family, before going on to win Best Director Oscars for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi.

Which Taiwanese 'King of Mandopop' played Kato in The Green Hornet?

Jay Chou took on the sidekick role Bruce Lee had played in the 1960s television series; he was discovered after losing a TV talent contest, when the host noticed the score he had written.

A saying in reform-era China held that people listened to Teresa Teng by night and which leader by day?

Deng Xiaoping was 'Old Deng' in the saying, Teresa Teng 'Little Deng'; her ballads spread across the mainland on cassette in the late 1970s despite an official ban.

Which Taiwanese dance company, founded by Lin Hwai-min in 1973, has an asteroid named after it?

Cloud Gate Dance Theatre lost its rehearsal studio, costumes and archive to a fire in 2008; donors gave more than NT$370 million to rebuild, and the company made a new home in Tamsui.

Most of the treasures in Taipei's National Palace Museum once belonged to which imperial site?

Beijing's Forbidden City held the imperial collection until 1933, when thousands of crates were sent south to keep them from an invading army; the finest pieces were shipped on to Taiwan in 1948–49.

Taiwan High Speed Rail, opened in 2007, is based primarily on which country's technology?

Japan's Shinkansen won on a late switch: the operator had bid with a European train built on French TGV and German ICE technology, then changed supplier in 1999, making Taiwan the bullet train's first export market.

Which everyday act is banned past Taipei Metro's ticket gates?

Eating or drinking is banned once passengers pass the gates, chewing gum and betel nut included, and anyone caught can be fined up to NT$7,500.

Which city is home to Taiwan's busiest container port?

Kaohsiung got its name in 1920, when officials replaced the old name Takau, written with characters meaning 'beat the dog', with new ones; Kaohsiung is how those characters are read in Mandarin.

Kinmen, also called Quemoy, sits at the mouth of the bay of which mainland Chinese city?

Xiamen, the Fujian port once romanised as Amoy, sits just across the water from Kinmen, which the PLA shelled heavily from August 1958 in the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis.

The Penghu archipelago in the Taiwan Strait is also known by what European name?

The Pescadores, Portuguese for 'fishermen', is the name European sailors gave Penghu; the islands' position in the strait made them a strategic prize, and France occupied them in 1885 during its war with China.

Which goddess is carried through central Taiwan each year on the nine-day Dajia pilgrimage?

Mazu, the sea goddess, rides in a sedan chair carried on foot from Dajia's Jenn Lann Temple to Xingang and back, stopping at temples along the way while crowds of pilgrims walk behind.

Which sport's professional league, the CPBL, began play in Taiwan in 1990 with four teams?

Baseball is often called Taiwan's national sport; a hotel owner, Hung Teng-sheng, pushed for a professional league after founding his own amateur team, and the first game was played on 17 March 1990.

Which leader was entombed at Cihu in 1975 to await burial in China?

Chiang Kai-shek asked to be buried in his native Zhejiang once the mainland was recovered, so he was entombed in a sarcophagus at Cihu, in Taoyuan, rather than buried.

Most of Taiwan's people live in which part of the island?

The western plains hold most of Taiwan's people, because rugged mountain ranges cover the eastern two-thirds of the island.

Which Taichung-based company had become the world's largest bicycle maker by the 2010s?

Giant, founded in 1972, spent its first years building bikes for other brands, Schwinn among them, before launching its own name in 1981.