The Old Taiwan dollar was in use from 1946 to 1949, beginning shortly after Taiwan's handover from Japan to the

Republic of China 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 northeast ...

. The currency was issued by the

Bank of Taiwan The Bank of Taiwan (BOT, , see below) is a commercial bank headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. It is owned by the government of Taiwan. History The Bank of Taiwan was established as Taiwan's central bank in 1899, during Japanese rule. Th ...

Hyperinflation In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as t ...

prompted the introduction of the

New Taiwan dollar The New Taiwan dollar (code: TWD; symbol: NT$, also abbreviated as NT) is the official currency of Taiwan. The New Taiwan dollar has been the currency of Taiwan since 1949, when it replaced the Old Taiwan dollar, at a rate of 40,000 old dollars ...

in June 1949, shortly before the Nationalist evacuation from mainland China in December.

History

Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945 and the colonial government of Taiwan issued

Taiwanese yen The was the currency of Japanese Taiwan from 1895 to 1946. It was on a par with and circulated alongside the Japanese yen. The yen was subdivided into 100 . It was replaced by the Old Taiwan dollar in 1946, which in turn was replaced by the New T ...

during this period through the

. In 1945, after the

Japanese Empire The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent forma ...

was defeated in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Taiwan was handed over to the

(ROC). Within a year, the Nationalist government assumed control of the Bank of Taiwan and issued Taiwan dollars (also known as Taiwan Nationalist yuan or TWN) as a "provisional" replacement for the Taiwan yen at the rate of one to one. The new banknotes were initially printed in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

, and were shipped to

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

. After the Nationalists consolidated their control over Taiwan the banknotes were printed in Taipei. The currency was not subdivided (no cents), and no coins were issued. Due to the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...

in the late 1940s, Taiwan, like

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, suffered from

hyperinflation In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as t ...

. As inflation worsened, the government issued banknotes at higher and higher denominations, up to one million yuan. Because the inflation of the Taiwan dollar was only a side effect of the inflation of the then Chinese yuan of mainland China, it depreciated at a slower rate than the currency used on the mainland. The Taiwan dollar was replaced by the

on 15 June 1949, at the rate of 1 new dollar to 40,000 old dollars. The Nationalists were defeated by the Communists in December of the same year and retreated to Taiwan. The government then declared in the

Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion The Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion were provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of China effective from 1948 to 1991 and amended four times by the Centr ...

that dollars issued by the Bank of Taiwan would become the new currency in circulation.

Banknotes

The denominations of the Old Taiwan dollar in circulation were:

References

External links

{{Economy of Taiwan Currencies of Asia Modern obsolete currencies Economic history of Taiwan 1946 establishments in Taiwan 1949 disestablishments in Taiwan 1940s economic history

History

Banknotes

See also

References

External links