Taiwan Travel Guide - Brief Information on Taiwan

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

Taiwan 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 Overview:  As a part of China, Taiwan covers an area of 36 thousand square kilometers, including Taiwan Island, Penghu Islands, Green Island, Orchid Island, Diaoyu Island,  Peng Jia-yu, Chiwei Yu etc. It is designated 7 cities and 16 counties.
Taiwan Island is mountainous, and the mountain and hill have occupied more than 2/3. There are five major mountain ranges of Taiwan Island, the four plains and three major basins, namely Central Mountain Range, snow-capped mountain Range, Yushan Mountain Range, Alishan Mountain Range and Taitung. The four plains includes Yilan Plain, Jianan Plain, Pingtung and Taitung plain with valley, Taipei basin, Taili basin and the Puli basin. Yushan, which is 3952 meters above sea level, is the highest peak in eastern China.

Except the abundant water resource, forests and fisheries resources, Taiwan’s other natural resources are limited, For the self-produced resources, there are only a small amount of coal, natural gas, gold, silver, copper, iron and other metal mineral less, which are existed in the northern part of the Central Mountain Range .

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

 

Taiwan Climate & Weather:  Taiwan is very warm in winter, hot with rich rainfall in summer, and with typhoons and storms in summer and autumn. Tropic of Cancer passes through the central island of Taiwan, its northern  part belongs to sub-tropical climate, the southern part is tropical climate. The annual average temperature of Taiwan (except the mountains) is 22 ℃, annual precipitation is more than 2000 mm. Abundant rainfall has provided  favorable condition for the river of the island.

Language in Taiwan:  Taiwan has its own dialect which belongs to Taiwanese. Due to language contact, some        vocabularies of Taiwan are come from Taiwan's native Mandarin language naturally, which include the culture of Taiwan ,the words used in everyday life, and a large number of Taiwan's local languages (mainly Taiwanese) popular terms.

Taiwan Transportation:  The transportation of Taiwan Province has formed as an multi-layered three-dimensional traffic network with flight, railway, highway and marine etc.

By Air:  There are two international airports in Taiwan currently, which are Taoyuan 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 done great contribution to the railway transportation of Taiwan. There are trains from Taiwan to the other cities and counties every day, which are very convenient. It will take about 4hours 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 highway from Taipei to Yilan County on the northern part. To the central Taiwan, the highway of Taichung to Taroko is existed.
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. The facilities of the buses are very well, and the passengers feel very comfortable based on it.

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, Hualian etc. Among them, Kaohsiung and Keelung are the international ports.

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

Major Taiwan Tourism Resources:  

Tourist Attractions:  Taiwan has various tourism resources, which can be satisfied various travelers. Among which the major attractions are Sun Moon Lake, Alishan, Beitou Hot Springs, Yangmingshan and Mazu Temple of Peikang.

Travel Agencies:  There are 1 licensed tour operators which can offer travel services to international travelers. Please refer to all these Taiwan travel agencies.