Administrative divisions of Taiwan

The administrative divisions of Taiwan consist of provinces and special municipalities. The provinces are "streamlined", with very little direct function. Each province is however subdivided into provincial cities and counties. There are 6 special municipalities (Kaohsiung, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei and Taoyuan), 3 provincial cities (Chiayi, Hsinchu and Keelung) and 13 counties.

History

See also: Political divisions of Taiwan (1895–1945) and History of the administrative divisions of China (1912–49)

Territory

In 1945, after the World War II, the Republic of China acquired Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) from the Empire of Japan. In 1949, the government of the Republic of China led by Kuomintang lost the Chinese Civil War and retreated to Taipei, Taiwan. The government lost almost its jurisdiction over mainland China, only some offshore islands remained. This history gives two different sources of the current Taiwanese administrative divisions on the Free area of the Republic of China or Taiwan Area.

• Island of Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores): inherited from the divisions of Taiwan under the Empire of Japan.
• Kinmen (Quemoy) and Matsu Islands: inherited from the divisions of mainland China under the Republic of China.

Changes to divisions

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

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 in streamlined form 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. 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.

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

The summary of changes on administrative divisions are shown below

Name	Notes
Fujian Province	The provincial capital was moved from Fuzhou to Jincheng, Kinmen in 1949. Government was streamlined in 1956.
Taiwan Province	The provincial capital was moved from Taipei to Zhongxing New Village in 1956. Government was streamlined in 1998.
Kaohsiung City	Formerly a provincial city, elevated as a special municipality in 1979. In 2010, a new Kaohsiung special municipality was established by merging former Kaohsiung County with the existing Kaohsiung City.
New Taipei City	Formerly Taipei County, was elevated as a special municipality in 2010.
Taichung City	Was established by merging Taichung provincial city and Taichung County in 2010.
Tainan City	Was established by merging Tainan provincial city and Tainan County in 2010.
Taipei City	Formerly a provincial city, was elevated as a special municipality in 1967.
Taoyuan City	Formerly Taoyuan County, was elevated as a special municipality in 2014.

This brought the top-level divisions of Taiwan (ROC) to its current state: 2 streamlined provinces and 6 special municipalities; and under the provinces, 13 counties and three provincial cities.

Administrative divisions

Structural hierarchy

Level	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
Division type	Special municipality (直轄市 zhíxiáshì) (6)		Mountain indigenous district (原住民區 yuánzhùmín qū) (6)	Urban village (里 lǐ)	Neighborhood (鄰 lín)
			District (區 qū) (164)
	Province (省 shěng) (2) (Streamlined)	Provincial city (市 shì) (3)
		County (縣 xiàn) (13)	County-controlled city (縣轄市 xiànxiáshì) (14)
			Urban township (鎮 zhèn) (38)
			Rural township (鄉 xiāng) (122)	Rural village (村 cūn)
			Mountain indigenous township (山地鄉 shāndì xiāng) (24)
Total	22		368	7,851	147,785
Note: Since the provinces are streamlined, special municipalities are usually counted with provincial cities and counties. In Chinese, all special municipalities, provincial cities, and county-controlled cities are all referred to as 市 (shì) in their full official names. Provincial cities are sometimes called 省轄市 (shěngxiáshì) to distinguish them from the other two types of cities.

Under the administrative scheme, some cities and counties may share the same name but are independent administrations; this occurs with Chiayi City and Chiayi County, and Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County.

Special municipalities, cities and counties

Taipei

New Taipei

Keelung

Taoyuan

Hsinchu County

Hsinchu

Miaoli

Taichung

Changhua

Penghu

Nantou

Yunlin

Chiayi County

Chiayi

Tainan

Kaohsiung

Pingtung

Yilan

Hualien

Taitung

Taiwan Province

Kinmen

Lienchiang (Matsu)

Fuchien Province

Taiwan Strait

South China Sea

East China Sea

Pescadores
Channel

Bashi Channel

Philippine Sea
(Pacific Ocean)

Main articles: Special municipality (Taiwan), Provincial city (Taiwan), and County (Taiwan)

See also: List of administrative divisions of Taiwan

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 provincial city. Counties with population more than 2 million may grant some extra privileges in local autonomy that was designed for special municipalities.

	Name	Chinese	Pinyin	Pe̍h-ōe-jī	No.
	Special municipality	直轄市	zhíxiáshì	ti̍t-hat-chhī	6
	Provincial city	市	shì	chhī	3
	County	縣	xiàn	koān	13

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 10 counties are on the main island of Taiwan

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

• Penghu County administers Penghu Islands.
• Kinmen County administers Kinmen Islands and Wuqiu Islands.
• Lienchiang County administers Matsu Islands.
• Note that Kaohsiung also administers the Dongsha Islands and Taiping Island of the South China Sea Islands.

Townships, county-controlled cities and districts

Main articles: Township (Taiwan), County-controlled city, and District (Taiwan)

See also: List of townships, cities and districts of Taiwan

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

Name	Chinese	Pinyin	Pe̍h-ōe-jī	Administered by	Self-gov.	No.
Mountain indigenous township	山地鄉	shāndì xiāng	soaⁿ-tē hiong	County	Yes	24
Rural township	鄉	xiāng	hiong	County	Yes	122
Urban township	鎮	zhèn	tìn	County	Yes	38
County-controlled city	縣轄市	xiànxiáshì	koān-hat-chhī	County	Yes	14
Mountain indigenous district	原住民區	yuánzhùmín qū	gôan-chū-bîn khu	Special municipality	Yes	6
District	區	qū	khu	Special municipality Provincial city	No	164

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

The townships, county-controlled 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 provincial 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 aborigines, in these divisions, only Taiwanese aborigines may be elected to be the township/district chiefs.

Lower-level administrative divisions

Main article: Village (Taiwan)

The 368 divisions are further divided into villages and to neighborhoods.

Name	Chinese	Pinyin	Pe̍h-ōe-jī	Administered by	No.
Rural village	村	cūn	chhun	Mountain indigenous township Rural township	7835
Urban village	里	lǐ	lí	Urban township County-controlled city Mountain indigenous district District
Neighborhood	鄰	lín	lîn	Rural village Urban village	147,877

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

Other issues

Joint Service Centers of Executive Yuan

See also: Regions of Taiwan

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 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.

Name	Chinese	Date of creation	Service area
Southern Taiwan JSC	南部聯合服務中心	Jun. 1, 1998	Kaohsiung, Penghu, Pingtung
Central Taiwan JSC	中部聯合服務中心	May 14, 2003	Changhua, Miaoli, Nantou, Taichung
Eastern Taiwan JSC	東部聯合服務中心	Sep. 29, 2007	Hualien, Taitung
Yunlin-Chiayi-Tainan JSC	雲嘉南區聯合服務中心	Mar. 27, 2012	Chiayi (city and county), Tainan, Yunlin
Kinmen-Matsu JSC	金馬聯合服務中心	Jan. 18, 2017	Kinmen, Lienchiang

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.

Romanization

Main article: Chinese language romanization in Taiwan

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-controlled 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. 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.

See also

• History of Taiwan
• History of the Republic of China
• Political divisions of Taiwan (1895–1945)
• History of the administrative divisions of China (1912–49)
• ISO 3166-2:TW

External links

• "Local Government Act (地方制度法)". Ministry of Justice. Retrieved 2017-01-01.
• "Romanizations for county-level and township-level entities" (PDF). Department of Land Administration, Ministry of the Interior. Retrieved 2017-01-01.

Overview of administrative divisions of the Republic of China

Republic of China
Free area					Mainland area
Special municipalities		Provinces			Not administered
		Counties		Autonomous municipalities
Districts	Mountain indigenous districts	County- administered cities	Townships	Districts
Villages
Neighborhoods

Notes