County-controlled cities
A county-controlled city (縣轄市) is one of the 32 cities in Taiwan Province of the Republic of China administered under one of the 16 counties of the Republic of China. On the same level as a ROC township, it is the lowest-level city of ROC, below provincial and direct-control municipality. In contrast, the counties under the People's Republic of China cannot administer cities (but since it has prefecture-level city absent in ROC, it still has 3 kinds of cities as well). A county-controlled city has urban villages (里) directly under it.
The two criteria of a county-controlled city originally are:
- population between 150,000 and 500,000
- advanced industry and transportation network
The population criteria was originally 50,000 in the 1940s, but was raised to 10,000 in 1959, and again in 1977 to the present level.
At first, in late January 1946, there were only two county-controlled cities: Hualien and Yilan, which were prefecture-controlled cities (州轄市) under the Japanese Occupation. (The Kuomintang did not create such cities on the Mainland before they fled.) Taipei County has the most county-controlled cities (10). For all places ever obtained the county-controlled status, see the chart below:
Timeline
Below, unless noted otherwise in parenthesis, the newly created cities were towns that exceeded the 150,000 criteria.
| Date | Addition | #
|
| August 16, 1950 | Chiayi (originally provincial city) | 3
|
| December 1, 1951 | Hsinchu, Changhua, and Pingtung (originally provincial cities) | 6
|
| April 1, 1962 | Sanchong, Taipei | 7
|
| July 1, 1962 | Jhongli, Taoyuan | 8
|
| January 25, 1971 | Taoyuan, Taoyuan | 9
|
| July 1, 1972 | Banciao, Taipei and Fongshan, Kaohsiung | 11
|
| January 1, 1976 | Taitung, Taitung | 12
|
| March 1, 1976 | Fongyuan, Taichung | 13
|
| January 1, 1979 | Yonghe and Jhonghe, Taipei | 15
|
| January 15, 1980 | Sinjhuang and Sindian, Taipei | 17
|
| December 25, 1981 | All county seats (originally jhen-township) upgraded to county-controlled cities, namely,
- Miaoli, Miaoli
- Nantou, Nantou
- Douliou, Yunlin
- Sinying, Tainan
- Makung, Penghu
| 22
|
| July 1, 1982 | remove Hsinchu and Chiayi (to be provincial cities) | 20
|
| October 31, 1988 | Jhubei, Hsinchu (county seat) | 21
|
| July 1, 1991 | Taibao, Chiayi (county seat) | 22
|
| March 1, 1992 | Pingjheng, Taoyuan | 23
|
| September 10, 1992 | Puzih, Chiayi (originally siang-township, county seat) | 24
|
| May 1, 1993 | Yongkang, Tainan (originally siang-township) | 25
|
| June 26, 1993 | Tucheng, Taipei | 26
|
| November 1, 1993 | Dali, Taichung | 27
|
| January 1, 1995 | Bade, Taoyuan | 28
|
| August 1, 1996 | Taiping, Taichung | 29
|
| October 6, 1997 | Lujhou, Taipei | 30
|
| July 1, 1999 | Sijhih, Taipei | 31
|
| October 4, 1999 | Shulin, Taipei | 32
|
Lienchiang and Kinmen Counties do not have any cities.
