TaiwanTravel Guide - Brief Information on Taiwan

Taiwan Province in Chinese Pinyin:  tái wān
Taiwan Province in Chinese Writing:    

Taiwan Province in Chinese Pronunciation:    Click the button to learn how to say Taiwan Mandarin Chinese. Or you can download it to your hand device to play it to a conductor when buying a train ticket to Taiwan.

Taiwan Province Overview:  Taiwan covers an area of 36,000 square kilometers, including Taiwan Island, Penghu Islands, Green Island, Orchid Island, Diaoyu Island, Peng Jia-yu, Chiwei Yu etc. It has 7 cities and 16 counties.

Taiwan Island is a mountainous region with mountains occupying more than 2/3 of the land. In the island of Taiwan there are five major mountain ranges namely Central Mountain Range, Snow-capped Mountain Range, Yushan Mountain Range, Alishan Mountain Range and Taitung, four plains such as Yilan Plain, Jianan Plain, Pingtung and Taitung plain with valley, and three major basins such as Taipei basin, Taili basin and Puli basin. Yushan with 3952 meters above sea level is the highest peak in eastern China.

Except the abundant water resources, forests and fisheries resources, other natural resources in Taiwai are limited. For the self-produced resources, there are only a small amount of coal, natural gas, gold, silver, copper, iron and other metal minerals which can be found in the northern part of the Central Mountain Range.

Map of Taiwan Province:   Here is a rough map of Taiwan showing where Taiwan is located on the map of China.

 

Taiwan Province Climate & Weather:  Taiwan is very warm in winter, hot with rich rainfall in summer, and has typhoons and storms in summer and autumn. Tropic of Cancer passes through the central island of Taiwan, with sub-tropical climate at the northern part and tropical climate at the southern part. The annual average temperature except the mountainous region is 22 ℃. With annual precipitation more than 2000 mm Taiwan gets abundant rainfall providing favorable condition for the rivers in the island.

Language in Taiwan Province:Taiwan has its own dialect that belongs to Taiwanese. Taiwan's native Mandarin language has highly influenced Taiwanese vocabulary, culture, number of Taiwanese local languages.

Taiwan Province Transportation: The transportation in Taiwan is a multi-layered three-dimensional traffic network with flight, railway, highway and marine route etc.

By Air:  There are two international airports in Taiwan currently, which are Tao Yuan Airport and Kaohsiung Airport. Besides, Taiwan has many civil airports as well, such as Songshan Airport, Taizhong Airport, Tainan Airport, Hualian Airport, Taitung Airport. Among these airports, four of the largest are Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, Hualian and Taibei Airports.

By Train:   A trunk railway via Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung runs through the entire territory of Taiwan. In addition, there are horizontal extensive railways among cities. The railway lines have made a great contribution to the Taiwan railway transportation. There are trains from Taiwan to the other cities and counties every day, which are very convenient. It will take about 4 hours 10 minutes from Taipei to Kaohsiung, and 5 hours and 50 minutes from Taipei to Taitung.

By Bus:   The highway system of Taiwan is fully developed. There are highways from Taipei to Yilan County on the northern part. To travel to the central Taiwan, the highway of Taichung to Taroko is used.

The long distance bus station is located on the Chengde Road, the north gate of Taipei Railway Station. There are four main bus companies in the station providing good facilities to make passengers comfortable.

Water Transportation:  Taiwan is surrounded by the sea, and the maritime transportation is very developed. Nowadays, there are several large ports in Taiwan, such as Kaohsiung, Keelung, and Hualian etc. Among them, Kaohsiung and Keelung are the international ports.

Taiwan Province Food:  Various snacks are available in Taiwan, which includes Oyster Omelets, Chenshuibian Ducks, Pepper Bread and Meatballs etc.  Taichung’s Sun Cakes, Chiayi’s Chicken Rice and Tainan’s Black Bridge Sausage are all very famous.

Major Taiwan Province Tourism Resources:   Taiwan has various tourism resources to satisfy different travelers. The major attractions are Sun Moon Lake, Alishan, Beitou Hot Springs, Yangmingshan and Mazu Temple of Peikang.