Municipalities in Taiwan
Republic of China (ROC) currently administers two historical provinces of China (one completely and one for a small part) and centrally administers two municipalities:
Additionally, the ROC has not officially renounced sovereignty over Mainland China (including Tibet) and outer Mongolia, although in 1991 it stated that it does not challenge the right of the People's Republic of China (PRC) to rule those areas, and it has made some statements that can be interpreted as renouncing sovereignty over the Mainland, and most observers feel that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party would very much prefer to officially renounce such sovereignty.
This extremely ambigious situation results in large part because a formal renouncement of sovereignty over the Mainland could be taken as a declaration of Taiwan independence which would be unpopular among some circles on Taiwan and could likely bring about military action by the PRC. See Political status of Taiwan for more information.
Maps of China and the world published in Taiwan will sometimes show provincial boundaries as they were in 1949 which do not match the current administrative structure as decided by the Communist Party of China post-1949. As such, they show the 35 provinces, 12 municipalities, 1 special administrative region, and 2 regions that existed in 1949, along with the more recently elevated municipalities of Taipei and Kaohsiung. (See History of the political divisions of China: Republic of China)
Structural hierarchy
The number at the end are the amount of entities as of 2004, in areas under ROC control:
The lowest level, the neighbourhood, is not named, but only enumerated (start from one in each village). They number in 146,112 (127,242 in Taiwan Province), under 7,809 villages (6,838 in Taiwan). There are altogether 369 secondary entities (rural and urban townships, districts (of both types of municipalities), and county-administered cities).
There are a number cities and counties which are similiarly named, but in the ROC administrative scheme, they are completely separate and unconnected. Tainan City and Tainan County, for example, have no special administrative connection with each other. In most cases, the area designated as the city is much smaller than than the actual metropolitan area, in contrast with the situation on Mainland China where the administrative city tends to be larger than the actual metropolitan area.
Compare to Political divisions of China: Summary
Romanization
The romanization used for ROC placenames is Wade-Giles, except "Keelung" and "Quemoy", which are the more popular versions of romanization. "Chiayi" is a slightly modified form of the Wade-Giles version, "Chia-i". After Tongyong Pinyin was adopted by the current administration in 2002, most municipalities, provinces, and county-level entities retained Wade-Giles, with the aforementioned exceptions. In addition, "Yilan" is written in place of "Ilan".
Municipalities
Counties
In Taiwan Province:
In Fujian Province (Wade-Giles: Fuchien):
Provincial municipalities
In Taiwan Province:
Criticism of political divisions
Historically the most controversial part of the political division system of the ROC has been the existence of Taiwan province as its existence was part of a larger controversy over the political status of Taiwan. In the mid-1990s, the provincial government was essentially
stripped of almost all of its authority, but it remains a streamlined entity.
There has been some criticism of the current administrative scheme as being inefficient and inconducive 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.
However, the likelihood of consoldiation remains low. Many of the cities have a political geography which may be very different from its surrounding counties, making the prospect of consolidation to be very politically charged. For example, while the Kuomintang argues that combining Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City into a metropolitan Taipei region would allow for better regional planning, the Democratic Progressive Party argues that this is merely an excuse to eliminate the government of Taipei County, which it controls by swamping it with votes from Taipei City and Keelung City, which tend to vote Kuomintang.
See also
