Country
Asia
Taiwan
Taiwan is a big island in Asia, near China. It has tall green mountains, busy cities and a very tall tower called Taipei 101.
Taiwan is an island in the western Pacific Ocean, about 160 kilometers off the coast of southeastern China. Mountains cover about two-thirds of it, and most of its 23 million people live on the flatter west side. It has its own government, based in Taipei. The People's Republic of China, governed from Beijing, says Taiwan is part of China, and Taiwan's status is disputed.
Taiwan is a mountainous island in the western Pacific, about 395 km long, governed with nearby islands by the Republic of China (ROC) from Taipei. The People's Republic of China (PRC) maintains that it has jurisdiction over Taiwan, and its status is disputed. Its 23.3 million people (2026) live mostly on the western plains, and its economy grew so fast from the 1960s that it became known as an "economic miracle."
Photo: Heeheemalu, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover Taiwan
Taiwan is a big island in Asia.
It is near China. Tall green mountains run down the middle. Most people live on the flatter west side.
Taiwan is an island in East Asia, about 160 kilometers off the coast of southeastern China. It is about 395 kilometers long from north to south and 145 kilometers across at its widest point. Mountains cover about two-thirds of the island.
Taiwan has its own elected government, called the Republic of China, which meets in the city of Taipei. The People's Republic of China, governed from Beijing, says that Taiwan belongs to China. The two governments have never agreed on Taiwan's future, and its status is disputed. About 23.3 million people lived in Taiwan in 2026.
Taiwan lies roughly 160 km off southeastern China and is about 395 km long and 145 km wide, similar in area to the Netherlands. Britannica describes Taipei as the seat of government of the Republic of China (ROC), which also administers 22 smaller islands in the Taiwan group, the 64 islands of the Penghu (Pescadores) archipelago, and the Matsu and Kinmen (Quemoy) groups just off China's Fujian province.
After the Nationalist government moved to Taiwan in 1949, the ROC claimed the Chinese mainland until it dropped that claim in the early 1990s. The PRC government in Beijing maintains that it has jurisdiction over Taiwan under its one-China policy, a position Britannica says few countries dispute. Britannica notes that there has been no agreement on how or when, if ever, the two might be reunified; Taiwan's status remains disputed. The population was about 23.3 million in 2026.
Cities and famous places
Taipei is a big city in the north of Taiwan.
It has a giant tower called Taipei 101. It has 101 floors! A big round ball inside helps keep it steady.
Taipei, in the north of the island, is where Taiwan's government meets. Its best-known building is Taipei 101, a skyscraper with 101 floors, finished in 2004. Inside, between the 87th and 92nd floors, hangs a huge steel ball weighing 660 metric tons that helps keep the tower steady, and visitors can see it.
New Taipei City, around Taipei, has the most people of any city in Taiwan. Kaohsiung in the southwest is a big harbor city, and Tainan has the port district of Anping. The National Palace Museum, on the edge of Taipei, holds one of the world's finest collections of ancient Chinese art.
Taiwan has six cities of more than a million people, led by New Taipei City, a special municipality formed in 2010 from the former Taipei county around Taipei city. The best harbors are on the west coast, at Kaohsiung and Anping in Tainan, with Keelung at the northern tip and Suao Bay in the northeast.
Taipei 101 was built from 1999 to 2004 in eight modules of eight stories each, a shape Britannica compares to a bamboo stalk or an elongated pagoda; a 660-metric-ton tuned mass damper hangs between the 87th and 92nd floors to steady it, and its outdoor observatory was the highest in the world when it opened. The National Palace Museum, opened in 1965, holds artifacts, art and books taken to Taiwan from China in 1949 and is considered one of the world's best collections of Chinese antiquities.
Mountains, rain and typhoons
Taiwan has tall mountains.
The tallest one is called Yushan, or Jade Mountain. It rains a lot in Taiwan. Big storms called typhoons come in late summer.
A long range of mountains, the Central Range, runs down the east side of Taiwan. Several dozen peaks reach near or above 3,000 meters, and the highest is Yushan, also called Jade Mountain. On the east side the mountains drop steeply to the Pacific, while the west has gentle slopes and flat plains, where most farms and people are.
Taiwan's summers are long and hot and its winters short and mild, though snow falls in the mountains. It gets about 2,590 millimeters of rain a year. From late summer to early fall, typhoons, some of the strongest in the world, can bring floods. Earthquakes are frequent too.
Taiwan is an uplifted crustal block trending north-northeast. Its volcanic soil and frequent earthquakes point to a common origin with nearby island chains, though rocks on the west coast suggest to some geologists that it was once part of the mainland. Mountains cover about two-thirds of the island; several dozen peaks of the Chung-yang (Central) Range approach or exceed 3,000 m, the highest being Yushan (Jade Mountain). The Choshui River, 186 km, is the longest.
The climate is subtropical, tropical in the far south, with a mean annual high of 21 °C, moderated by the warm Kuroshio current. Rain totals about 2,590 mm a year, heavier in the east and mountains, and monsoon winds give the north a wet winter and the south a wet summer. Typhoons from late summer to early fall are among the strongest in the world. Vegetation covers nearly all the land and a little more than half is forest, changing with height from bamboo and palms in the lowlands to camphor laurel, then cedars and cypress, then conifers above about 2,300 m.
Animals of Taiwan
The biggest wild animal in Taiwan is a black bear.
It is called the Formosan black bear. Deer, foxes and wild boars live in quiet places. Lots of birds live there too.
About 45 kinds of mammals are native to Taiwan. The largest is the Formosan black bear. Foxes, flying foxes, deer and wild boars still live in the parts of the island where few people live.
Taiwan has many birds: about 550 kinds and subspecies of birds have been seen there, and about 85 are native. There are many kinds of reptiles too, including many snakes, some of them poisonous. The smaller islands near Taiwan have fewer kinds of plants and animals.
Britannica counts some 45 mammal species indigenous to Taiwan; most others resemble those on the mainland. The largest is the Formosan black bear, and foxes, flying foxes, deer and wild boars survive in less-inhabited areas. About 550 bird species and subspecies have been sighted, of which some 85 are indigenous, and there is a great variety of reptiles, including many snakes, a large number of them venomous.
The smaller islands governed from Taipei hold fewer plants and animals; on the Penghu Islands persistent winds keep most trees from growing. On the main island, nearly three-fourths of the forest is hardwood and conifers make up fewer than one-fifth of the trees.
People, languages and food
About 23 million people live in Taiwan.
Many people speak Mandarin Chinese. Many also speak Taiwanese or Hakka. Bubble tea was first made in Taiwan!
Taiwan's Indigenous peoples have lived on the island for more than 10,000 years, and the government recognizes 16 Indigenous groups, each with its own language. Most people in Taiwan today descend from families who came from southern China, and the largest group is the Hoklo, who speak Taiwanese; the Hakka are another big group. Mandarin Chinese is the official language, and many people speak more than one language.
Food is a big part of life. Bubble tea, made with tea, milk and chewy tapioca balls, was first made in Tainan in the mid-1980s. The Lunar New Year is the most important holiday, when families gather to eat and talk.
Britannica describes four groups: Indigenous peoples (about 2 percent, in 16 recognized groups, the largest being the Amis), the Hoklo or Fukien Taiwanese (about 65 percent), the Hakka (about 15 percent) and Chinese who arrived from the mainland from the mid-1940s (about 15 percent). The Indigenous peoples were present more than 10,000 years ago; some scholars think their ancestors spread from Taiwan across the Pacific. The Hoklo and Hakka came mostly between the 14th and 17th centuries.
Mandarin, made the official language after World War II, is used in schools and government; the Hoklo speak Minnan (Taiwanese), the Hakka their own language, and each Indigenous group a distinct language, and Britannica expects Taiwan to stay multilingual. Buddhists and Daoists are the largest religious groups, and many people follow more than one faith. About 80 percent of people live in urban areas (2024). Bubble tea originated in Tainan in the mid-1980s and spread worldwide in the 2000s.
Taiwan's history
People have lived in Taiwan for a very long time.
Later, people came by boat from China. Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years. Today, the people of Taiwan vote for their leaders.
Indigenous peoples lived in Taiwan more than 10,000 years ago, and for a long time there was no single ruler. In the 1600s Taiwan was a colony of the Netherlands for about 40 years, and later China ruled it for about two centuries. Many families moved there from southern China.
In 1895 Japan took control of Taiwan, and in 1945, after World War II, it became part of the Republic of China. In 1949, after losing a civil war on the mainland, the Republic of China's government moved to Taiwan. Its economy grew very fast from the 1960s, and from the late 1980s Taiwan became a democracy where people vote for their leaders.
Before the 1600s Taiwan had no central authority. It was a Dutch colony for about 40 years in the early to mid-17th century, independent again for about two decades, and then ruled by China for some two centuries. After the first Sino-Japanese War, the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki ceded it to Japan, which built railways and industry but ruled strictly and pressed people to adopt Japanese language and culture.
Taiwan became part of the Republic of China on 25 October 1945. Tensions with the new administration led to protests in February 1947, the 2-28 Incident, which troops put down. In 1949 the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek and about 1.5 million people moved to Taiwan after communist armies won the civil war on the mainland. Rapid growth from the mid-1960s was called an "economic miracle." Martial law ended in 1987, an opposition party formed in 1986, and in 1996 Taiwan held the first direct election of a top leader in any Chinese entity.
Taiwan on the map
Find Taiwan on the globe.
It is an island in the ocean, near China. Japan's islands are to the northeast. The Philippines are to the south.
Taiwan is part of a long string of islands off the coast of Asia, stretching from Japan south through the Philippines to Indonesia. The East China Sea lies to the north, the huge Pacific Ocean to the east, and the Bashi Channel to the south separates Taiwan from the Philippines.
To the west, the Taiwan Strait separates Taiwan from mainland China. Nearby smaller islands include the Penghu Islands in the strait, and Kinmen and Matsu, right next to the Chinese coast.
Britannica places Taiwan in the island chain that runs from Japan through the Philippines to Indonesia. It is bounded to the north and northeast by the East China Sea, with Japan's Ryukyu Islands to the northeast; to the east by the Pacific; to the south by the Bashi Channel, separating it from the Philippines; and to the west by the Taiwan (Formosa) Strait, separating it from mainland China.
The ROC also administers the Penghu archipelago in the strait and the Kinmen and Matsu groups off Fujian.
- Distance from mainland China
- about 160 km
- Length of the island
- about 395 km north to south
- Mountains
- about two-thirds of the island
- Rain
- about 2,590 mm a year
Amazing facts
-
Bubble tea was first made in Taiwan.
Bubble tea, a drink of tea, milk and chewy tapioca balls, was first made in Tainan in the mid-1980s.
Bubble tea originated in Tainan in the mid-1980s, became a popular after-school treat across Taiwan, and spread internationally in the 2000s.
-
A giant metal ball helps hold Taipei 101 steady.
A steel ball weighing 660 metric tons hangs inside Taipei 101 to help keep the skyscraper steady, and visitors can see it.
Taipei 101's tuned mass damper, a 660-metric-ton steel sphere suspended between the 87th and 92nd floors, helps keep the building steady and can be seen from the public observatory.
-
Taiwan's biggest wild animal is a black bear.
The Formosan black bear is the largest of Taiwan's roughly 45 native kinds of mammals.
Of some 45 indigenous mammal species, the largest is the Formosan black bear; about 85 of the roughly 550 bird species and subspecies sighted on the island are indigenous.
-
Snow falls on Taiwan's high mountains.
Taiwan's winters are short and mild, but snow falls in the mountains, and occasionally lower down in the north.
Winter temperatures vary greatly with elevation; snow falls in the mountains and occasionally at lower elevations in the north, while summer heat is much the same at all heights.
-
Taiwan's first people may have sailed far across the ocean.
Some scientists think the ancestors of Taiwan's Indigenous peoples may have traveled from Taiwan to islands across the Pacific, as far as New Zealand.
Late 20th- and 21st-century studies, including DNA evidence, suggest Taiwan's Indigenous peoples may have migrated to other places in the region, among them Polynesia and what is now New Zealand.
Words to know
- island
- land with water all around it
- typhoon
- a powerful storm that forms over the western Pacific Ocean
- strait
- a narrow strip of sea between two pieces of land
- Indigenous
- describes the first peoples known to have lived in a place
- martial law
- rule by the military, with fewer freedoms than usual
- disputed
- argued about, with different sides disagreeing
- skyscraper
- a very tall building with many floors
Discovery challenge
-
Taiwan is a big what?
What kind of landform is Taiwan?
Taiwan is about 395 km long and lies about 160 km off the Chinese coast. What is it?
- A desert
- An island
- A glacier
Show the answer
An island
Taiwan is an island. The ocean is all around it.
Taiwan is an island in the western Pacific, about 160 kilometers from China.
Taiwan is a roughly oval island separated from mainland China by the Taiwan Strait.
-
What does the 101 in Taipei 101 count?
Taipei 101 is named for its number of what?
The 101 in Taipei 101's name counts which part of the building?
- Floors
- Windows
- Elevators
Show the answer
Floors
Taipei 101 has 101 floors.
Taipei 101 has 101 floors and was finished in 2004.
Its top indoor observatory, not open to the public, is on the 101st floor; the public observatories are on floors 88 to 91.
-
What big storms come to Taiwan in late summer?
Which powerful storms hit Taiwan from late summer to early fall?
Which tropical cyclones, among the strongest in the world, affect Taiwan from late summer to early fall?
- Typhoons
- Blizzards
- Sandstorms
Show the answer
Typhoons
Typhoons are big storms with strong wind and rain.
Typhoons can damage crops and cause floods in Taiwan.
Taiwan's typhoons, from late summer to early fall, are among the strongest in the world and can cause severe flooding.
-
Which drink was first made in Taiwan?
Which drink with chewy tapioca balls was invented in Tainan?
Which drink originated in Tainan in the mid-1980s and spread internationally in the 2000s?
- Hot chocolate
- Bubble tea
- Lemonade
Show the answer
Bubble tea
Bubble tea was first made in Taiwan.
Bubble tea mixes tea, milk and chewy tapioca balls.
Bubble tea originated in Tainan in the mid-1980s and became internationally famous in the 2000s.
-
What is the biggest wild animal in Taiwan?
Which animal is Taiwan's largest native mammal?
Of Taiwan's roughly 45 indigenous mammal species, which is the largest?
- Formosan black bear
- Giant panda
- Polar bear
Show the answer
Formosan black bear
The Formosan black bear is the biggest.
The Formosan black bear is Taiwan's largest mammal.
Britannica names the Formosan black bear as the largest of Taiwan's indigenous mammals.
Places to discover in Taiwan
Explore next
-
Watch
Landmark
Taipei 101
Taipei 101 is a skyscraper in Taipei, Taiwan, 508 meters tall with its spire and 101 stories high. When it opened, it was the tallest building in the world. Inside hangs a 660-ton steel ball, a tuned mass damper, that helps steady the tower in typhoon winds and earthquakes.
-
Watch
Country
Afghanistan
Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south-central Asia. The high Hindu Kush mountains run across its middle, sandy deserts lie in the southwest, and the capital, Kabul, sits in a valley about 1,800 meters above sea level.
-
Watch
Country
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan is a country on the southern side of the Caucasus Mountains, along the western shore of the Caspian Sea. It has high mountains, wide lowlands and forests, its capital is Baku, and about 10.3 million people lived there in mid-2026.
-
Watch
Country
Indonesia
Indonesia is a country of about 17,500 islands in Southeast Asia, spread across the Equator between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It has more than 100 active volcanoes, rainforests full of wildlife, and about 286 million people (2025).
-
Watch
Country
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Most of its land is steep mountains and forest, Mount Fuji is its tallest peak, and about 124 million people live there, many of them in big cities such as Tokyo.
-
Watch
Country
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan is a mountain country in Central Asia, with no coast on the sea. The high Tien Shan mountains cover much of it, and Lake Issyk-Kul, one of the largest high-mountain lakes in the world, lies in the northeast. Its capital is Bishkek.
-
Watch
Country
Pakistan
Pakistan is a country in South Asia that stretches from icy mountain peaks in the north down the fertile valley of the Indus River to the Arabian Sea. It has busy cities such as Karachi and Lahore, its capital is Islamabad, and its 2023 census counted 241.49 million people.
-
Watch
Country
South Korea
South Korea occupies the southern part of the Korean Peninsula in East Asia, with sea on three sides. It is mostly mountains and hills, its capital Seoul is one of its many big cities, and the national census counted about 51.8 million people in 2025.
For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Locate Taiwan, the Taiwan Strait and the seas around it.
- Describe how mountains, heavy rain and typhoons shape life on the island.
- Describe Taiwan's many peoples and languages, from Indigenous groups to later arrivals.
- Explain in neutral terms that Taiwan has its own government and that its status is disputed.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why do you think most people in Taiwan live on the western side of the island?
- How might a building be designed to stay steady in strong winds and earthquakes?
- Why might people in one place speak several languages?
Try at home or in class
- Hang a heavy ball of clay on a string inside a tall box and gently shake the box to see how the swinging weight moves.
- On a map, measure 160 kilometers from the Chinese coast to Taiwan and compare it with a trip you know.
Key vocabulary: island, typhoon, strait, Indigenous, martial law, disputed, skyscraper
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Natural Earth vector data , Natural Earth (NACIS) (Public domain)
- Taiwan (introduction, quick facts, land, relief, drainage) , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwan: Climate (plant and animal life, ethnic groups) , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwan: Languages (religions, settlement patterns, demography) , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwan: Cultural life , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwan: Manufacturing , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwan: Taiwan as part of the Japanese empire , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwan: Early Nationalist rule , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taiwan: Successors to Chiang Kai-shek , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Taipei 101 , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- PlayOwl region table, version 1 , PlayOwl (PlayOwl original data)
- flag-icons 7.5.0 , Panayiotis Lipiridis and contributors (MIT)
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 27, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.