Mingjian Township is a rural township in western

Nantou County Nantou County (; Hokkien POJ: ''Lâm-tâu-koān''; Hakka PFS: ''Nàm-thèu-yen'') is the second largest county of Taiwan by area, located in the central part of the country. It is also the only non-coastal county in Taiwan. Its name derives fro ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. It is the second smallest township in the county, after Jiji Township.

Name and etymology

The name Mingjian originates from a Japanese transliteration of the original

Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about 70% ...

name, Làm-á (), with literal meaning "a very wet place". In 1920, during Japanese rule, the name was changed to which closely matched the Taiwanese pronunciation but with different ''

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

'' (

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...

) for the name. This written form was retained after the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

takeover of Taiwan in 1945; the characters are pronounced ''Bêng-kan'' and ''Míngjiān'' in Taiwanese and

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

, respectively.

History

Mingjian was a hunting ground for the

Taiwanese aborigines Taiwanese may refer to: * Taiwanese language, another name for Taiwanese Hokkien * Something from or related to Taiwan ( Formosa) * Taiwanese aborigines, the indigenous people of Taiwan * Han Taiwanese, the Han people of Taiwan * Taiwanese people, ...

. In 2008, the 100th congregation of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...

in Taiwan was organized in Mingjian. A leaning unused

electrical pylon A transmission tower, also known as an electricity pylon or simply a pylon in British English and as a hydro tower in Canadian English, is a tall structure, usually a steel lattice tower, used to support an overhead power line. In electrical ...

damaged in the

1999 Jiji earthquake The Chi-Chi earthquake (later also known as the Jiji earthquake) (), also known as the great earthquake of September 21 (), was a 7.3 ML or 7.7 Mw earthquake which occurred in Jiji (Chi-Chi), Nantou County, Taiwan on Tuesday, 21 Se ...

, has been turned into an earthquake memorial.Tilting Electric Tower in Mingjian.
2 May 2008.

Administrative divisions

Mingjian includes the villages of Buxia (), Chishui (), Dakeng (), Dazhuang (), Donghu (), Kanjiao (), Nanya (), Puzhong (), Renhe (), Sanlun (), Songbo (), Songshan (), Tanliao (), Tianzi (), Wandan (), Xincuo () Xinguang (), Xinjie (), Xinmin (), Zhongshan (), Zhongzheng (), Zhuoshui (), Zhuwei ().

Transportation

* TRA Zhuoshui Station

Notable natives

* Chen Cheng-sheng, member of

Legislative Yuan The Legislative Yuan is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of China (Taiwan) located in Taipei. The Legislative Yuan is composed of 113 members, who are directly elected for 4-year terms by people of the Taiwan Area through a parallel v ...

(1999-2002)

References

{{Townships in Taiwan Townships in Nantou County