Information AboutTaiwan |
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Taiwan (; in East Asia . "Taiwan" is also commonly used to refer to the territories administered by the Republic Of China (ROC) and to ROC itself, which governs the island of Taiwan, Lanyu (Orchid Island) and Green Island in the Pacific off the Taiwan coast, the Pescadores in the Taiwan Strait , and Kinmen and the Matsu Islands off the coast of mainland Fujian . The island groups of Taiwan and Penghu (except the municipalities of Taipei and Kaohsiung ) are officially administered as Taiwan Province of the Republic Of China . The main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa (from Portuguese (''Ilha'') ''Formosa'', meaning "beautiful (island)"), is located in East Asia off the coast of Mainland China , southwest of the main islands of Japan but directly west of the end of Japan's Ryukyu Islands , and north-northwest of the Philippines . It is bound to the east by the Pacific Ocean , to the south by the South China Sea and the Luzon Strait , to the west by the Taiwan Strait and to the north by the East China Sea . The island is 394 kilometers (245 miles) long and 144 kilometers (89 miles) wide and consists of steep mountains covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation. HISTORY See Also: History of Taiwan Timeline of Taiwanese history Prehistory See Also: Prehistory of Taiwan Evidence of human settlement in Taiwan dates back thirty thousand years, although the first inhabitants of Taiwan may have been genetically distinct from any groups currently on the island. About four thousand years ago, ancestors of current Taiwanese Aborigine s settled in Taiwan. These aborigines are genetically related to Malay and Polynesians , and linguists classify their language as Austronesian .1 Polynesians are suspected to have ancestry traceable back to Taiwan. Early settlement
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