News •
Taiwan’s climate is subtropical, except for the very southern part of the island, which is tropical. Summers are long and hot, lasting from April or May to September or October. The winters are short and mild, although snow does fall in the mountains and occasionally at lower elevations in the north. The mean annual high temperature on the island is 70 °F (21 °C); elevation makes a considerable difference in the temperature in the winter, though it is not much of a factor in the summer. The warm Kuroshio (Japan Current), which flows northward to the east of Taiwan, moderates the island’s temperatures.
Taiwan receives abundant precipitation throughout the year, totaling about 102 inches (2,590 mm) annually. In general, rainfall is heavier on the east side of the island and in the mountains. However, its distribution depends on the seasonal monsoon (wet-dry) wind patterns. The winter (October through March) southeastward-blowing winds produce a rainy season in the north, while dry conditions prevail in the southern part of the island; the conditions are reversed in summer. The climate patterns on the islands near Taiwan are similar except that they are not affected by elevation. The climate of the offshore islands is similar to that of coastal southeastern China.
Taiwan does not experience tornadoes, which are common on the mainland. However, it is affected by typhoons (tropical cyclones) from late summer to early fall that are among the strongest in the world. Taiwan’s typhoons can inflict considerable damage to crops and sometimes cause severe flooding.
Plant and animal life
Vegetation covers nearly all of Taiwan’s land surface, a situation created by good rainfall and warm temperatures for most of the year. The island was once covered almost completely by forests, but now only a little more than half of the land surface is forested. Taiwan has a large variety of trees, though nearly three-fourths of the forests are hardwoods. Conifers, which make up fewer than one-fifth of trees, are the most useful in building. Fewer trees grow on the smaller islands Taipei governs, in most cases because persistent winds there inhibit forest growth. That situation is especially true of the P’eng-hu Islands (Pescadores). There also is a great variety of other plant life on Taiwan, owing to different soil types, elevation, and other factors.
As the climate varies with elevation, so too does the natural vegetation. Stands of mixed bamboo, palm, and tropical evergreens grow in the lowlands. Subtropical evergreen forests, including camphor laurel, are found at elevations between about 2,000 to 6,000 feet (600 to 1,800 metres). Broad-leaved evergreen forests are represented by cedars, cypress, junipers, rhododendrons, maples, and Japanese cedars (Cryptomeria japonica) from 6,000 to 8,000 feet (1,800 to 2,400 metres), whereas coniferous forests are found above 7,500 feet (2,300 metres).
Some 45 mammal species are indigenous to Taiwan; most of the others are similar to those found on the mainland. The largest mammal is the Formosan black bear. Foxes, flying foxes, deer, and wild boars are still found in less-inhabited areas of the island. About 550 species and subspecies of birds have been sighted on Taiwan, of which some 85 species or subspecies are indigenous. There are a great number of reptile species, including a large variety of snakes, many of which are poisonous. The smaller islands that are governed by Taipei have fewer varieties of plant and animal life.
The people
Ethnic groups
The population of Taiwan is composed of four ethnic or subethnic groups: Indigenous peoples, two groups of Taiwanese—the Fukien Taiwanese (Fukienese [Fujianese], or Hoklo) and the Hakka—and Chinese who came from mainland China beginning in the mid-1940s. All three non-Indigenous groups are of Han Chinese descent.
Aboriginal peoples, who were once the only residents of Taiwan, today constitute only a tiny fraction—roughly 2 percent—of Taiwan’s total population. The government recognizes 16 aboriginal groups or tribes. The Ami is the largest group, comprising about two-fifths of the aboriginal population. The next three largest groups in descending order of numbers—the Paiwan, Atayal, and Bunan—together account for most of the remaining aboriginal population. The two smallest groups, the Thao and Hla’alua, number only several hundred each. Aboriginal peoples are considered to be the original inhabitants of Taiwan, although that is not certain. They were present on the island more than 10,000 years ago. On the basis of language and culture, they were thought to have migrated to Taiwan from Southeast Asia. However, some scholars considered it possible that they migrated from southern China and that some tribes may have had other origins. Studies undertaken in the late 20th and early 21st centuries suggest that they may have been on the island much earlier and, on the basis of DNA evidence, that they may have migrated to other places in the region, among them Polynesia, including what is now New Zealand.
The Hoklo (Fukien Taiwanese) and the Hakka began arriving on the island a thousand years ago, although most migrated during the 14th–17th century. The Hoklo hailed from southern Fukien (Fujian) province. The Hakka came from Kuangtung (Guandong) province and Fukien, though they had no “home province” in China and throughout the centuries suffered from discrimination and thus have sometimes been compared to the Roma or Jews. It is uncertain which of the two peoples migrated to Taiwan first, but the Fukien Taiwanese came in larger numbers and forced the Hakka off their land and into the interior, more dangerous parts of the island, where the land was not as good.
The relationship between these two groups of early-arrival Chinese, or Taiwanese, was not good, and they often engaged in conflict or local wars. They generally regarded each other as enemies. Today the Hakka comprise about 15 percent of the total population. The Fukien Taiwanese are the majority ethnic group in Taiwan, making up about 65 percent of its residents.
After World War II, Chinese from various parts of China went to Taiwan as the Japanese colonial government and Japanese businesspeople and farmers there departed. The newer arrivals became known as mainland Chinese, or recent Chinese immigrants. Many more Chinese went to Taiwan in 1949, after the Chinese communists under Mao Zedong defeated the Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang took his political party, government, military, and anyone able to flee at the time to Taiwan. However, more Chinese arriving during that period hailed from southern coastal China than from other parts of the mainland. Mainland Chinese constitute about 15 percent of Taiwan’s population.
Languages of Taiwan
Each aboriginal group speaks a distinct language that generally is unintelligible to other groups. The aboriginal people had no written language until they made contact with the Dutch in the 17th century. The Hakka have their own language, which has affinities with both Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. The Fukien Taiwanese speak Minnan, a form of Southern Min (often called Taiwanese on Taiwan), which comes from southern Fukien province. The mainlanders speak Mandarin Chinese, the official language of China. Many mainlanders may also speak a dialect of the province from which they originally came, although that practice has diminished considerably among the younger generations born on Taiwan. Most aboriginal people speak Mandarin; many speak Taiwanese, and a diminishing number know Japanese. Hoklos also speak Mandarin; older ones speak Japanese. Most Hakka speak Taiwanese and Mandarin, and some speak Japanese.
After World War II the mainland Chinese-run government made Mandarin the official language, and it was used in the schools and in government. With democratization, other languages or dialects became more popular. The Fukien Taiwanese have consistently promoted their language, with some suggesting getting rid of Mandarin—since it is the language of the former minority ruling class. Yet Mandarin has the largest number of speakers of any language in the world, and Taiwan increasingly depends on trade and commercial ties with China. Hence the idea of replacing Mandarin with Taiwanese has not gotten too far, and Taiwan seems likely to remain multilingual.
Religions
The aboriginal peoples practice animism, nature worship, and other indigenous religious rites. The Chinese brought Buddhism, Daoism (Taoism), and Confucianism to Taiwan. The Dutch introduced Protestant Christianity and the Spanish Roman Catholicism. The Japanese brought Shinto. In 1949 many religious groups and religious leaders—especially Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist—fled to Taiwan from China.
The principal religions of Taiwan according to the number of adherents are: Buddhism, Daoism (Taoism), Christianity, and Yiguan Dao (I-Kuan Tao; “Way of Unity”). Buddhists and Daoists are by far the largest groups. Many of Taiwan’s residents are Confucians, though Confucianism is not strictly a religion but rather an ethical system that applies especially to politics and a philosophical system that is particularly Chinese. Religious affiliation is not exclusivist in Taiwan, and many people adhere to more than one faith.
Other religions operate freely in Taiwan, and Taiwan is said to be one of the most religiously tolerant places in the world. Certainly few people express concern about or prejudice against others because of their religion. Before Chen Shui-bian became president in 2000, all of Taiwan’s presidents at least nominally professed to be Christian, even though the adherents of Christianity constitute only a small minority of the population of Taiwan.
Settlement patterns
Aboriginal peoples inhabited all of Taiwan and its adjacent islands at the time that people from China began arriving. Those Chinese, both Hakka and Fukien Taiwanese, initially settled mainly on the island’s west coast and over time gradually moved inland. Many of the lowland aboriginal people were either assimilated or moved into the mountainous areas of the island. The mainland Chinese took up residence primarily on the northern part of the island in and around Taipei.
Taiwan’s population was mainly rural until the post-World War II period, but by the early 1950s about half of its people lived in cities of more than 50,000. The proportion of urban dwellers continued to increase rapidly and by 1980 had risen to close to four-fifths of the total population—higher than the urbanization rate in Japan or in the United States. More recently, however, the proportion of people living in the largest cities declined somewhat, as more people moved to suburban areas. Taiwan has six cities with more than a million inhabitants, topped by New Taipei City (Hsin-pei shi or Xinbei shi), a special municipality created in 2010 from the former Taipei county surrounding Taipei city.
Demography
Taiwan’s first census was undertaken in 1905 and recorded a population of about three million on the island. By the end of World War II that number had doubled. After the war, especially in 1949, there was a large influx of people from China. In addition, the birth rate at that time was high and remained so until the late 1950s, but it declined precipitously thereafter. In the 2010s, Taiwan was approaching zero population growth.
The ethnic balance of the population did not change much after 1949, although the mainland Chinese and aboriginal populations grew more slowly than did those of the two Taiwanese groups. However, the demographic makeup of the island has changed noticeably since the late 20th century, with the birth rate falling markedly and with significant numbers of foreigners taking up residence in Taiwan through marriage to its citizens—especially around the turn of the 21st century. An aging population also has become an issue, because of a declining death rate and longer life expectancy. At times the sex ratio of Taiwan’s population has been a matter of concern, and after World War II it was skewed toward more males than females. Since 2000, however, the ratio between the sexes generally has been near parity, with higher female life expectancies and a greater number of female immigrants.