Township (Taiwan)

Townships are the third-level administrative subdivisions of counties of Taiwan, along with county-controlled cities. After World War II, the townships were established from the following conversions on the Japanese administrative divisions:

• Towns (Japanese: 街, Hepburn: gai, Pe̍h-ōe-jī: ke) to urban townships (Chinese: 鎮; pinyin: zhèn; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: tìn)
• Villages (Japanese: 庄, Hepburn: jō, Pe̍h-ōe-jī: tsng) to rural townships (Chinese: 鄉; pinyin: xiāng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: hiong).
• Aboriginal areas (Japanese: 蕃地, Hepburn: banchi, Pe̍h-ōe-jī: huan-tē) to mountain indigenous townships (Chinese: 山地鄉; pinyin: shāndì xiāng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: suaⁿ-tē hiong).

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-controlled cities. Under townships, there is still the village as the fourth or basic level of administration.

Recently there are totally 186 townships in Taiwan, including 146 rural townships and 40 urban townships. Penghu and Lienchiang are the only two counties that do not have urban townships.

Names below are transliterated using the Hanyu Pinyin romanization system. Note that the county names do not necessarily use Hanyu Pinyin or special case such as Lukang.^[1]

Statistics of Townships

List of townships by county

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Townships in Taiwan.

• County (Taiwan)
• County-controlled city

References