Taiwan Travel Fact Sheet

The official flag of .
Source: wikipedia.org.

Basic Info

Country Name

Taiwan, but offically Republic of China

What the People are Called

Taiwanese and/or Chinese

Ethnic Groups

About 98% of Taiwan's population is of Han Chinese ethnicity. Of these, 86% are descendants of early Han Chinese immigrants known as the "benshengren" (Chinese: 本省人; pinyin: Běnshěng rén; literally: "home-province person") in Chinese. This group is often referred to "native Taiwanese" in English, but the term is also frequently used for the Taiwanese aborigines. The benshengren group contains two subgroups: the Hoklo people (70% of the total population), whose ancestors migrated from the coastal southern Fujian (Min-nan) region in the southeast of mainland China starting in the 17th century, and the Hakka (15% of the total population), whose ancestors originally migrated south to Guangdong, its surrounding areas and Taiwan.

About 12% of the population are known as waishengren (Chinese: 外省人; pinyin: Wàishěng rén; literally: "out-of-province person"), composed of people who emigrated from mainland China after 1945. The existence of Fuzhou people can be traced to the Matsu islands of Republic of China, they make up about 2% of the population. The main language used by the Fuzhou people are the Fuzhou dialect and Mandarin. In order to preserve the Fuzhou dialect, Matsu island has introduced the teaching of their dialect in their elementary schools.

The other 2.25% of the population number about 522,942 Taiwanese aborigines, divided into 14 major groups. The Ami, Atayal, Bunun, Kavalan, Paiwan, Puyuma, Rukai, Saisiyat, Sakizaya, Sediq, Thao, Truku and Tsou live mostly in the eastern half of the island, while the Yami inhabit Orchid Island.

U.S. Embassy

The U.S. maintains unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a private nonprofit corporation, which performs citizen and consular services similar to those at diplomatic posts.

Canadian Embassy

6F, Hua-Hsin Building, No. 1 SongZhi Road, Xinyi District, Taipei 11047, Taiwan

Currency

New Taiwan dollar (NT$) (TWD)

Time Zone

National Standard Time (UTC+8) Summer (DST) not observed (UTC+8)

Phone/Internet Information

+886

Major Languages Spoken

Mandarin is the official national language and is spoken by the vast majority of the population of Taiwan. It has been the primary language of instruction in schools since the Japanese rule ended. As in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese is used as the writing system in Taiwan.

Most Waishengren speak primarily Mandarin. The 70% of the population belonging to the Hoklo ethnic group speak Taiwanese Hokkien (a variant of the Min Nan speech of Fujian province) as their mother tongue, in addition to Mandarin, and many others have some degree of understanding. The Hakka ethnic group (15% of the population) use the Hakka language. Although Mandarin is the language of instruction in schools and dominates television and radio, non-Mandarin languages or dialects have undergone a revival in public life in Taiwan, particularly since restrictions on their use were lifted in the 1990s.

Fuzhou dialect are also spoken in Matsu Islands, territory of Republic of China. Most of the inhabitants speak Fuzhou as their mother tongue although Mandarin is taught in the public schools.

Taiwan's indigenous languages, the Formosan languages, do not belong to the Chinese or Sino-Tibetan language family, but rather to the Austronesian language family. Their use among Taiwan's aboriginal minority groups has been in decline as usage of Mandarin has risen. Of the 14 extant languages, five are considered moribund.

Alphabet

There are and have been several Chinese alphabets, that is pre-existing alphabets adapted to write down the Chinese language. However, the standard Chinese writing system uses a non-alphabetic script with an alphabet for supplementary use.[1] There is no original alphabet native to China. China has its Pinyin system though sometimes the term is used anyway to refer to logographic Chinese characters (sinograms). It is more appropriately used, though, for phonemic transcriptions such as pinyin.

Major holidays

Jan 1 New Year's Day National holiday

Jan 30 Chinese New Year's Eve National holiday

Jan 31 Chinese New Year's Day National holiday

Feb 1 Chinese New Year National holiday

Feb 2 Chinese New Year National holiday

Feb 3 Chinese New Year National holiday

Feb 4 Chinese New Year National holiday

Feb 4 Farmer's Day Observance

Feb 14 Lantern Festival Observance

Feb 14 Tourism Day Observance

Feb 28 228 Memorial Day National holiday

Mar 2 Earth God's Birthday Observance

Mar 8 Women's Day Observance

Mar 12 Arbor Day Observance

Mar 19 Kuan Yin's Birthday Observance

Mar 20 March equinox Season

Mar 29 Youth Day Observance

Apr 4 Children's Day National holiday

Apr 5 Tomb Sweeping Day National holiday

Apr 14 God of Medicine's Bday Observance

Apr 20 Easter Sunday Observance

Apr 22 Matsu's Birthday Observance

May 1 Labor Day National holiday

May 4 Literary Day Observance

May 6 Buddha's Birthday Observance

May 11 Mother's Day Observance

Jun 2 Dragon Boat Festival National holiday

Jun 3 Opium Suppression Day Observance

Jun 10 Kuan Kung's Birthday Observance

Jun 10 Chen Huang's Birthday Observance

Jun 21 June Solstice Season

Aug 2 Chi Hsi Festival Observance

Aug 8 Father's Day Observance

Aug 10 Ghost Festival Observance

Sep 3 Armed Forces Day Observance

Sep 8 Mid-Autumn Festival National holiday

Sep 23 September equinox Season

Sep 28 Teachers' Day Observance

Oct 2 Double Ninth Day Observance

Oct 10 National Day National holiday

Oct 21 Overseas Chinese Day Observance

Oct 25 Taiwan's Retrocession Observance

Nov 12 Sun Yat-sen's Birthday Observance

Dec 6 Saisiat Festival Observance

Dec 21 December Solstice Season

Dec 21 Dōngzhì Festival Observance

Dec 25 Constitution Day Observance

Dec 25 Christmas Day Observance

Source: Public Holidays Taiwan Source: Wikipedia Taiwan

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