Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. It is located at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south. The territories controlled by the ROC consist of 168 islands with a combined area of 36,193 square kilometers. The main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, has an area of 35,808 square kilometers, with mountain ranges dominating the eastern two-thirds and plains in the western third, where its highly urbanised population is concentrated. The capital, Taipei, forms along with New Taipei City and Keelung, the largest metropolitan area in Taiwan. Other major cities include Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. With around 23.9 million inhabitants, Taiwan is among the most densely populated countries in the world.
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is an island country located in East Asia. The island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, makes up 99% of the land area of the territories under ROC control. The main island measures 35,808 square kilometres (13,826 sq mi) and lies some 180 kilometres (112 mi) across the Taiwan Strait from the southeastern coast of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The East China Sea lies to the north of the island, the Philippine Sea to its east, the Luzon Strait directly to its south and the South China Sea to its southwest. The ROC also controls a number of smaller islands, including the Penghu archipelago in the Taiwan Strait, the Kinmen and Matsu Islands in Fuchien near the PRC's coast, and some of the South China Sea Islands.
The February 28 incident was an anti-government uprising in Taiwan that was violently suppressed by the Kuomintang–led nationalist government of the Republic of China (ROC). Directed by provincial governor Chen Yi and president Chiang Kai-shek, thousands of civilians were killed beginning on February 28, 1947. The incident is considered to be one of the most important events in Taiwan's modern history and was a critical impetus for the Taiwan independence movement.
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck was an American writer and novelist. She is best known for The Good Earth, the best-selling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and which won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China" and for her "masterpieces", two memoir-biographies of her missionary parents.
Camphor is a waxy, colorless solid with a strong aroma. It is classified as a terpenoid and a cyclic ketone. It is found in the wood of the camphor laurel, a large evergreen tree found in East Asia; and in the kapur tree, a tall timber tree from South East Asia. It also occurs in some other related trees in the laurel family, notably Ocotea usambarensis. Rosemary leaves contain 0.05 to 0.5% camphor, while camphorweed (Heterotheca) contains some 5%. A major source of camphor in Asia is camphor basil. Camphor can also be synthetically produced from oil of turpentine.
The Republic of Formosa was a short-lived republic that existed on the island of Taiwan in 1895 between the formal cession of Taiwan by the Qing dynasty of China to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki and its being taken over by Japanese troops. The Republic was proclaimed on 23 May 1895 and extinguished on 21 October, when the Republican capital Tainan was taken over by the Japanese. Though sometimes claimed as the first East Asian republic to have been proclaimed, it was predated by the Lanfang Republic in Borneo, established in 1777, as well as by the Republic of Ezo in Japan, established in 1869.
The Rover Incident occurred on 12 March 1867 when the American merchant ship Rover, captained by Joseph Hunt who was accompanied by his wife Mercy G. Beerman Hunt, and en route from Shantou to Niuzhuang, was wrecked off the coast of Taiwan, then ruled by the Qing dynasty. The ship struck a coral reef called Qixingyan near Cape Eluanbi and drifted into the area of Kenting in modern-day Hengchun, Pingtung County, Taiwan. Fourteen American sailors, including Hunt and his wife, were killed by Taiwanese Aborigines in revenge for earlier killings of Kaolut (Koalut/Ku-a-lut/etc) tribe members by foreigners. Subsequently, the U.S. military decided to send a military expedition against the tribe members responsible.
The island of Taiwan, also commonly known as Formosa, was partly under colonial rule by the Dutch Republic from 1624 to 1662 and from 1664 to 1668. In the context of the Age of Discovery, the Dutch East India Company established its presence on Formosa to trade with the Ming Empire in neighbouring China and Tokugawa shogunate in Japan, and also to interdict Portuguese and Spanish trade and colonial activities in East Asia.
Pieter Nuyts or Nuijts was a Dutch explorer, diplomat and politician.
The Qing dynasty ruled over the island of Taiwan from 1683 to 1895. The Qing dynasty sent an army led by general Shi Lang and defeated the Ming loyalist Kingdom of Tungning in 1683. Taiwan was then formally annexed in April 1684.
The bilateral relationship between Taiwan and the United States of America is the subject of the Japan-U.S. relations during Japanese colonial rule and China-U.S.relations before the government of the Republic of China (ROC) led by the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan and its neighboring islands as a result of the Chinese Civil War and until the U.S. ceased recognizing the ROC in 1979 as "China" as a result of the One China policy following the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations under the Carter administration. Prior to relations with the ROC, the United States had diplomatic relations with the Qing dynasty beginning on June 16, 1844 until 1912.
William Campbell (1841–1921) was a Scottish Presbyterian missionary to Formosa. He wrote extensively on topics related to Taiwan and was also responsible for founding the island's first school for the blind. Interested in the early history of the island, his knowledge of the time was such that he was called "without doubt the greatest authority on this subject living". He was probably the first European to see Sun-Moon Lake, which he named Lake Candidius in honour of the seventeenth century Dutch missionary George Candidius.
Absalom Andrew Sydenstricker was an American Presbyterian missionary to China from 1880 to 1931. The Sydenstricker log house at what later became the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace in Hillsboro, West Virginia, was Absalom's early childhood home.
The Exile is a memoir/biography, or work of creative non-fiction, written by Pearl S. Buck about her mother, Caroline Stulting Sydenstricker (1857–1921), describing her life growing up in West Virginia and life in China as the wife of the Presbyterian missionary Absalom Sydenstricker. The book is deeply critical of her father and the mission work in China for their treatment of women. Buck also traces the arc of her mother's disillusionment with religion. The success of the book led Buck to write a parallel memoir of her father, Fighting Angel, New York: John Day, 1936.
Fighting Angel: Portrait of a Soul (1936) is a memoir, sometimes called a "creative non-fiction novel," written by Pearl S. Buck about her father, Absalom Sydenstricker (1852–1931) as a companion to her memoir of her mother, The Exile.
James Wheeler Davidson was an American-born Canadian businessman, diplomat, explorer, journalist, and philanthropist. He is remembered for writing The Island of Formosa, Past and Present (1903), a book on the history of Taiwan. He also noted for greatly aiding the internationalisation of Rotary International.
Formosa Betrayed is a 1965 book written by George H. Kerr, a US diplomatic officer in Taiwan, who witnessed the February 28 Incident, and the corruption and killings committed by the Kuomintang in Taiwan after World War II.
Taiwanese tea includes four main types: oolong tea, black tea, green tea and white tea. The earliest record of tea trees found in Taiwan is from 1717 in Shui Sha Lian (水沙連), present-day Yuchi and Puli, Nantou County. Some of the teas retain the island country's former name, Formosa.
Taiwan Prefecture or Taiwanfu was a prefecture of Taiwan during the Qing dynasty. The prefecture was established by the Qing government in 1684, after the island came under Qing dynasty rule in 1683 following its conquest of the Kingdom of Tungning. The Taiwan Prefecture Gazetteer documented it as part of Fujian Province. The Gazetteer was completed by Gao Gonggan in 1695, the 34th year of the reign of the Kangxi Emperor. With the development and population growth of Taiwan during the Qing Era, the scope of Taiwan Prefecture was also varied over time. Following the establishment of Fujian-Taiwan Province in 1887, the prefecture correspondingly became a subdivision under the newly founded province.
Lord of Formosa is a 2018 English-language historical novel by Dutch author Joyce Bergvelt. Its Dutch translation, which was the first version to be released, was initially published by Conserve; the original English version, published by Camphor Press, was released in 2018. It chronicles Koxinga and takes place during the period of Taiwan under Dutch rule. The (traditional) Chinese translation was published on March 16, 2023, as 福爾摩沙之王 at Avanguard/Qianwei Publishing House, Taipei.
