Townships are the third-level administrative subdivisions of

counties A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

of the

Republic of China (Taiwan) Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, along with county-administered cities. After World War II, the townships were established from the following conversions on the Japanese

administrative divisions Administrative divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divi ...

: Although local laws do not enforce strict standards for classifying them, generally urban townships have a larger population and more business and industry than rural townships, but not to the extent of county-administered cities. Under townships, there is also the

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

as the base/fourth level of administration. As of 2022, there are in all 184 townships, including 38 urban townships, 122 rural townships and 24 mountain indigenous townships. 174 townships with 35 urban and 118 rural townships are located in

Taiwan Province Taiwan Province ( zh, t=臺灣省 , p=Táiwān Shěng , poj=Tâi-oân-séng; PFS: ''Thòi-vàn-sén'' or ''Thòi-vân-sén'') is a ''de jure'' administrative division of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Provinces remain a titular division as ...

and 10 townships with 3 urban and 4 rural townships are located in Fujian Province.

Penghu The Penghu ( , Hokkien Pe̍h-ōe-jī, POJ: ''Phîⁿ-ô͘'' or ''Phêⁿ-ô͘'' ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, about west of the main island of Taiwan across the Penghu Ch ...

and Lienchiang are the only two counties that do not have urban townships. Cities townships and mountain districts of Taiwan

Statistics of townships

Taiwan Province

Fujian Province

List of townships by county

Township names are now

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

using the

Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means ' Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin'' literally ...

romanization system without tone marks. The ''county'' names do not necessarily use Hanyu Pinyin or special case such as Lukang. Colors indicate the common language status of

Formosan languages The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather up to nine separate primary subfamili ...

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

or Matsu dialect within each division.

References

{{Administrative divisions of Taiwan navbar Township Populated places in Taiwan

Statistics of townships

Taiwan Province

Fujian Province

List of townships by county

See also

References