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Taiwan (Republic of China) is divided into multi-layered statutory subdivisions. Due to the complex political status of Taiwan, there is a significant difference in the de jure system set out in the original constitution and the de facto system in use today.

The ROC defines the Taiwan Area (Free Area) as its actual controlled territories, which is constitutionally divided into two provinces and six special municipalities, with each province subdivided into cities and counties. After a constitutional amendment in 1997, the provinces became non-self-governing bodies and remained as nominal divisions under the constitution, with no governing powers. The provincial governments were abolished in 2018. Provincial borders remained for statistical purposes.

With provinces non-functional in practice, Taiwan is divided into 22 subnational divisions (6 special municipalities, 3 cities, and 13 counties), each with a local government led by an elected head and a local council. Special municipalities and cities are further divided into districts for local administration. Counties are further divided into townships and county-administered cities, these divisions have a degree of autonomy with elected leaders and local councils, which share responsibilities with the county governments. Matters for which local governments are responsible or partially responsible include social services, education, urban planning, public construction, water management, environmental protection, transport and public safety.

When the ROC retreated to Taiwan in 1949, its claimed territory consisted of 35 provinces, 12 special municipalities, 1 special administrative region (Hainan) and several autonomous regions (Tibet, reclaimed Outer Mongolia in 1953). However, since its retreat, the ROC has controlled only Taiwan Province and some islands of Fujian Province. The ROC also controls the Pratas Island and Taiping Island in the Spratly Islands, which are part of the disputed South China Sea Islands. They were placed under Kaohsiung administration after the retreat to Taiwan.

Since 1949, the government has made some changes in the area under its control. Taipei became a special municipality in 1967 and Kaohsiung in 1979. The two provincial governments were "streamlined", with their functions transferred to the central government (Fujian in 1956 and Taiwan in 1998). In 2010, New Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan were upgraded to special municipalities. And in 2014, Taoyuan County was also upgraded to Taoyuan special municipality. This brought the top-level divisions to their current state:

According to Article 4 of the Local Government Act, laws pertaining to special municipalities also apply to counties with a population exceeding 2 million. This provision does not currently apply to any county, although it previously applied to Taipei County (now New Taipei City) and Taoyuan County (now Taoyuan City).

History

Territory

After the World War II in 1945, the Republic of China (1912–1949) received 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 continued 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 ignored the changes imposed by the PRC. After 1953, the authorities in Taiwan once claimed that Mongolia was ROC territory, but this claim was abolished under the Chen Shui-bian administration in 2002. 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. As of 2024, the ROC has not officially renounced claims in mainland China ruled by the CCP, though the ROC has also not recently published official maps depicting mainland China as part of its territory.

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. The original province was partitioned between the PRC and the ROC following the Battle of Guningtou in 1949. In addition, the ROC still controls over Pratas Island and part of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. These were originally part of the Hainan Special Administrative Region, but were transferred to the special municipality of Kaohsiung in 1996. These provinces were streamlined in 1998 and their governments became non-functional in 2019.

Changes to divisions

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. 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 on 25 December 2014.

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.

Current system

Overview of administrative divisions of the Republic of China

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

Notes

1. ^ Has an elected executive and an elected legislative council.
2. ^ Has an appointed district administrator for managing local affairs and carrying out tasks commissioned by superior agency.
3. Has an elected village administrator for managing local affairs and carrying out tasks commissioned by superior agency.

Special municipalities, counties, and cities

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.

Townships, county-administered cities and districts

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.

Lower-level administrative divisions

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.

Other issues

Joint Service Centers of Executive Yuan

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.

Romanization

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. 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

• List of administrative divisions of Taiwan
• List of administrative divisions of Fujian
• History of Taiwan
• History of the Republic of China
• Political divisions of Taiwan (1895–1945)
• Provinces of China
• History of the administrative divisions of China (1912–1949)
• Mainland China
• Free area of the Republic of China
• Indigenous Area (Taiwan)
• ISO 3166-2:TW

Notes

1. Also known as the Taiwan area or Tai–Min area (Chinese: 臺閩地區; lit. 'Taiwan–Fujian area')
2. The mainland area consists of Mainland China, Tibet and (previously) Outer Mongolia
3. Special municipalities, cities, and county-administered cities are all called shi (Chinese: 市; lit. 'city')
4. Nominal; provincial governments have been abolished
5. Constitutionally having the same structure as the free area, these are currently under the Chinese Communist Party control with a different structure
6. Sometimes called cities (Chinese: 市) or provincial cities (Chinese: 省轄市) to distinguish them from special municipalities and county-administered cities
7. There are two types of townships: rural townships or xīang (Chinese: 鄉) and urban townships or zhèn (Chinese: 鎮)
8. Villages in rural townships are known as cūn (Chinese: 村), those in other jurisdictions are known as lǐ (Chinese: 里)

References

1. Hwang, Jim (October 1999). "Gone with the Times". Taiwan Review. Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
2. "Taiwan Provincial Government Official Website". Archived from the original on 29 January 2019. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
3. Demographic Quarterly Winter 2022
4. "World: Asia-Pacific Analysis: Flashpoint Spratly". BBC. 14 February 1999.
5. Hwang, Jim (1 October 1999). "Gone with the Times". Taiwan Review. Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 13 April 2012.
6. "中華民國國情簡介 政府組織". Taipei: Government Information Office. Archived from the original on 14 May 2012. Retrieved 13 April 2012.
7. "Mongolian office to ride into Taipei by end of the year". Taipei Times. 11 October 2002. Archived from the original on 10 February 2009. Retrieved 28 May 2009. In October 1945, the people of Outer Mongolia voted for independence, gaining the recognition of many countries, including the Republic of China. (...) Due to a souring of relations with the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, however, the ROC revoked recognition of Outer Mongolia, reclaiming it as ROC territory. {...} Long a province of China, Mongolia declared its independence in 1921 with Soviet backing. After the Ministry of the Interior's recent decision to exclude Mongolia from the official ROC map, on Oct. 3, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Taiwan recognizes Mongolia as an independent country -- 81 years after Mongolia declared its independence.
8. "Laws and Regulations Regarding Mainland Affairs". Mainland Affairs Council. Retrieved 30 May 2018. Article 3: The enforcement areas of Subparagraph 2 of Article 2 of the Act shall refer to areas under control of the Chinese Communists.
9. "編印臺灣全圖及各級行政區域圖". 中華民國內政部地政司 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 5 April 2021.
10. Sherry Hsiao (29 June 2018). "Provincial-level agencies to be defunded next year". Taipei Times. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
11. 歷時28年 臺北縣今升格為準直轄市 [After 28 years, Taipei County today is promoted to quasi-municipality status]. 國立教育廣播電台新聞. 1 October 2007. Archived from the original on 27 January 2008. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
12. 升格為準直轄市 / 元旦改制日 桃園人口須維持200萬). Liberty Times. 7 December 2010.
13. 三都十五縣 馬指示漸進推動 [Ma directs gradual progression towards 3 municipalities and 15 counties]. Liberty Times. 27 December 2008. Archived from the original on 30 April 2009.
14. 縣市升格 北中高過關 南縣市補考 [Promotion of Cities and Counties: Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung approved; Tainan awaits further examination]. Liberty Times. 24 June 2009. Archived from the original on 26 June 2009.
15. 臺灣再添直轄市. Wikinews. 29 June 2009.
16. 中華民國國情簡介 政府組織 Archived 2012-05-14 at the Wayback Machine
17. "Hanyu Pinyin to be standard system in 2009". Taipei Times. 18 September 2008.
18. "Gov't to improve English-friendly environment". The China Post. 18 September 2008. Archived from the original on 19 September 2008.

External links

• 地方制度法 [Local Government Act]. Ministry of Justice, Republic of China. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
• "Romanizations for county-level and township-level entities" (PDF). Department of Land Administration, Ministry of the Interior, Republic of China. Retrieved 1 January 2017.

• Subdivisions of Taiwan
• Administrative divisions in Asia
• Administrative divisions by country