Administrative divisions of Taiwan

After the World War II in 1945, the Republic of China (1912–1949) acquired Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) from the Empire of Japan. After the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the ROC was reduced to mainly the island of Taiwan and some offshore islands, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) controlling the mainland. However, it continues to formally claim all 35 provinces (including those that no longer form part of the area of the People's Republic of China) in official maps by the ROC government and ignores the changes imposed by the PRC. By 1967 and 1979, the ROC set up Taipei and Kaohsiung as its special municipalities, with three more added in 2010 and one in 2014. No boundary changes were redrawn as of 2023 but the Chen Shui-bian administration renounced claims to Outer Mongolia in 2002.[7] The remaining provinces became streamlined in 1998 and its governments became non-functional in 2019.[8]

This history gives two different sources of the current Taiwanese administrative divisions on the free area of the Republic of China or Taiwan Area.

• Taiwan Province: The island of Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores): inherited from the divisions of Taiwan under the Empire of Japan.
• Fuchien Province: Kinmen (Quemoy) and the Matsu Islands – offshore islands inherited from the ROC's Fuchien divisions.
• Hainan Special Administrative Region: Formerly administered by the ROC, the Hainan island was conquered in 1950 by the PRC and it became a PRC province in 1988. The entire South China Sea islands were also placed under Hainan before 1950 and the ROC still retains control over Pratas Island and part of Spratly Islands, but this authority has been transferred to the special municipality of Kaohsiung following the loss of Hainan.
• Chekiang Province: Formerly administered by the ROC, the PRC conquered most of the province in 1950. However the ROC retained control of Dachen Islands until 1955.
• Yunnan Province: Formerly administered entirely by the ROC. After the communist conquest of Yunnan, Chinese Nationalist remnants still occupied the boundary regions between China and Myanmar who still pledged allegiance to the ROC government on Taiwan. The remaining Nationalist forces were ultimately expelled from the boundary regions following a joint attack by both PRC and Myanmar during 1960–61.

Since 1949, the government has made some changes in the area under its control. The two provincial governments were downscaled and much of their functions transferred to the central or county governments. Six special municipalities have been created.

Since 1949, the most controversial part of the political division system has been the existence of Taiwan Province, as its existence was part of a larger controversy over the political status of Taiwan. Since 1998, most of the duties and powers of Taiwan Provincial Government have been transferred to the central government, through amendments to the constitution. The much smaller Fukien province, Fujian Provincial Government has been downsized since 1956.

There has been some criticism of the current administrative scheme as being inefficient and not conducive to regional planning. In particular, most of the administrative cities are much smaller than the actual metropolitan areas, and there are no formal means for coordinating policy between an administrative city and its surrounding areas.

Before 2008, the likelihood of consolidation was low. Many of the cities had political demographics which were very different from their surrounding counties, making the prospect of consolidation highly politically charged. For example, while the Kuomintang argued that combining Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City into a metropolitan Taipei region would allow for better regional planning, the Democratic Progressive Party argued that this was merely an excuse to eliminate the government of Taipei County, which it had at times controlled, by swamping it with votes from Taipei City and Keelung City, which tended to vote Kuomintang.

On 1 October 2007, Taipei County was upgraded to a quasi-municipality (準直轄市) on the same level as Kaohsiung City and Taipei City.[9] This allowed the county to have the organizational and budgetary framework of a de jure municipality, but it was still formally styled as a county. Taichung County and Tainan City lobbied the central government for similar status. Taoyuan County was also upgraded to a quasi-municipality on 1 January 2011, as its population was above 2 million on the date of elevation.[10]

Under President Ma Ying-jeou's administration, the central government has reorganized more counties and cities.[11] Four mergers and promotions were approved in 2009 and became effective on 25 December 2010 and one more became effective on 25 December 2014.[12][13]

The summary of changes on administrative divisions are shown below.

This brought the top-level divisions of Taiwan (ROC) to its current state: 2 nominal provinces without administrative function and 6 special municipalities; and under the provinces, 13 counties and three cities.[14]

Currently there are three types and in total 22 administrative divisions are directly governed by the central government (Executive Yuan). According to the Local Government Act of Taiwan, a place with population more than 1.25 million may become a special municipality, a place with population between 0.5 and 1.25 million may become a city. Counties with population more than 2 million may grant some extra privileges in local autonomy that was designed for special municipalities.

These 22 divisions are also regulated by the Local Government Act as local self-governance bodies. Each division has its own executive called "city/county government" and own legislature called "city/county council". The city mayors, county magistrates and all legislators are elected by the people under its jurisdiction every four years. Geographically,

• Six special municipalities, three provincial cities, and ten counties are on the main island of Taiwan

Special municipalities	Counties		Cities
Kaohsiung City New Taipei City Taichung City Tainan City Taipei City Taoyuan City	Changhua County Chiayi County Hsinchu County Hualien County Miaoli County	Nantou County Pingtung County Taitung County Yilan County Yunlin County	Chiayi City Hsinchu City Keelung City

• Penghu County administers the Penghu Islands.
• Kinmen County administers the Kinmen Islands and the Wuqiu Islands.
• Lienchiang County administers the Matsu Islands.
• Kaohsiung also administers Pratas Island (Tungsha Island or Dongsha Island) and Taiping Island of the South China Sea Islands.

The 22 main divisions in the country are further divided into 368 subdivisions. These 368 divisions can be categorized as the following.

According to the Local Government Act, a county is divided into townships and county-administered cities. The county seat or place with population between 100,000 and 500,000 may become a county-administered city. A special municipality or a city is divided into districts.

The townships, county-administered cities in counties, and mountain indigenous district in special municipalities are also local self-governance bodies. Each division has its own executive called "township/city/district office" and own legislature called "township/city/district council". The city mayors, township/district chiefs and all legislators are elected by the people under its jurisdiction every four years. The normal districts in special municipalities and cities are governed as branches of the municipality/city government and do not hold any local self-governance power.

The mountain indigenous township and districts are created for its significant population of Taiwanese indigenous peoples, in these divisions, only Taiwanese indigenous peoples may be elected to be the township/district chiefs.

The 368 divisions are further divided into villages and neighborhoods.

The village chiefs are elected by the people under its jurisdiction every four years. The neighborhood chiefs are appointed by the village chief.

The central government operates five regional Joint Service Centers (JSC, 區域聯合服務中心) outside Taipei as outposts of the government ministries in the Executive Yuan, similar to the cross-departmental mode of working in the former Government Offices in England. These regions, laid out the Comprehensive National Spatial Development Plan for Taiwan (臺灣地區國土綜合開發計劃), can be considered a de facto level of government, perhaps equivalent to the English regions or the federal districts of Russia.

The divisions of northern Taiwan are not covered by any JSC, including Hsinchu (city and county), Keelung, New Taipei, Taipei, Taoyuan and Yilan. They are served directly by the headquarter of Executive Yuan in Taipei.

The romanization used for Taiwanese placenames above the county level is a modified form of Wade–Giles, ignoring the apostrophes and hyphens of the original, thus yielding "Taipei" instead of "T'ai-pei" and "Yilan" instead of "I-lan", for example. Some postal romanizations also exist, like "Keelung" and "Kinmen". In 2002, the ROC adopted Tongyong Pinyin as its national standard for romanization. Most townships and county-administered cities changed their romanization to Tongyong Pinyin at that time. However, some local administrations, like Taipei and Taichung, decided to use Hanyu Pinyin. In 2009, Tongyong Pinyin was replaced by Hanyu Pinyin as the ROC government standard.[15][16] Currently, most of the divisions are romanized by Hanyu Pinyin system, but some local governments still use Tongyong Pinyin, like Kaohsiung. In 2011, the ROC Ministry of the Interior restored historical romanizations for two towns, Lukang and Tamsui.