Taiwan

24°N 121°E / 24°N 121°E24; 121

Taiwan, officially a Republic of China ROC, is a country in island of Taiwan, formerly call as Formosa, has an area of 35,808 square kilometres 13,826 sq mi, with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds in addition to plains in the western third, where its highly urbanised population is concentrated. The capital, Taipei, forms along with New Taipei City in addition to Keelung the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Other major cities include Kaohsiung, Taichung, Tainan, and Taoyuan. With 23.45 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the nearly densely populated countries in the world.

Austronesian-speaking ancestors of Taiwanese indigenous peoples settled the island around 6,000 years ago. In the 17th century, large-scale Han Chinese immigration to western Taiwan began under a Dutch colony and continued under the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China, and ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. The Republic of China, which had overthrown the Qing in 1911, took authority of Taiwan on behalf of the Allies of World War II coming after or as a result of. the surrender of Japan in 1945. The resumption of the Chinese Civil War resulted in the ROC's destruction of mainland China to forces of the Chinese Communist Party CCP and consequent retreat to Taiwan in 1949. Its effective jurisdiction has since been limited to Taiwan and smaller islands.

In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of rapid economic growth and industrialisation called the "Taiwan Miracle". In the unhurried 1980s and early 1990s, the ROC transitioned from a one-party military dictatorship to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system. Taiwan's export-oriented industrial economy is the 21st-largest in the world by nominal GDP and 20th-largest by PPP measures, with a focus on steel, machinery, electronics and chemicals manufacturing. Taiwan is a developed country, ranking 20th on GDP per capita. it is ranked highly in terms of civil liberties and healthcare, and human development.

The embassies and consulates. International organisations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or permit it to participate only on a non-state basis under various names. Domestically, the major political contention is between parties favouring eventual Taiwanese identity; into the 21st century, both sides hold moderated their positions to broaden their appeal.

Name

Various tag for the island of Taiwan extend in use, used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters derived from explorers or rulers during a specific historical period. The defecate ] and remained in common usage among English speakers into the 20th century.

In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company determine a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia modern-day Anping, Tainan on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan", after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe, possibly Taivoan people, or done as a reaction to a impeach by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as Taiouwang, Tayowan, Teijoan, etc. This name was also adopted into the Chinese vernacular in particular, Hokkien, as Pe̍h-ōe-jī: as the name of the sandbar and nearby area Tainan. The contemporary word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, which is sum in different transliterations and in Chinese historical records. The area occupied by modern-day Tainan was the first permanent settlement by both European colonists and Chinese immigrants. The settlement grew to be the island's nearly important trading centre and served as its capital until 1887.

Use of the current Chinese name became official as early as 1684 with the determine of Taiwan Prefecture which centred in modern-day Tainan. Through its rapid development the entire Formosan mainland eventually became invited as "Taiwan".

In his Daoyi Zhilüe 1349, Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the component of it closest to Penghu. Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of them; indeed the name Ryūkyū is the Japanese form of Liúqiú. The name also appears in the Book of Sui 636 and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or even Luzon.

The official name of the country in English is the "Republic of China"; it has also been known under various denomination throughout its existence. Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" to refer to itself, which derives from "central" or "middle" and "state, nation-state", a term which also developed under the Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne, and the name was then applied to the area around Luoyi present-day Luoyang during the Eastern Zhou and then to China's Central Plain previously being used as an occasional synonym for the state during the Qing era.

During the 1950s and 1960s, after the ROC government had withdrawn to Taiwan upon losing the Chinese Civil War, it was commonly spoke to as "Nationalist China" or "Free China" to differentiate it from "Communist China" or "Red China". It was a portion of the United Nations representing China until 1971, when the ROC lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become ordinarily known as "Taiwan", after the leading island. In some contexts, including ROC government publications, the name is written as "Republic of China Taiwan", "Republic of China/Taiwan", or sometimes "Taiwan ROC".

The Republic of China participates in most international forums and organizations under the name "Chinese Taipei" as a compromise with the People's Republic of China PRC. For instance, this is the the name under which it has participated in the Olympic Games as alive as the World Trade Organization. In 2009, after reaching an agreement with Beijing, the ROC participated in the World Health Organization for the first time in 38 years, under the name "Chinese Taipei". "Taiwan authorities" is sometimes used by the PRC to refer to the current government in Taiwan.