Townships are the third-level administrative subdivisions of

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

of the

Republic of China (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 northeast ...

, along with county-administered cities. After World War II, the townships were established from the following conversions on the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

administrative divisions Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

: 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-administered cities. Under townships, there is still the

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

as the fourth or basic level of administration. As of 2022, there are totally 184 townships, including 38 urban townships, 122 rural townships and 24 mountain indigenous townships. 174 townships with 35 urban and 118 rural townships are located in

Taiwan Province Taiwan Province (; PFS: ''Thòi-vàn-sén'' or ''Thòi-vân-sén'') is a nominal administrative division of the Republic of China (ROC). Its definition has remained part of the Constitution of the Republic of China, but the province is no lo ...

and 10 townships with 3 urban and 4 rural townships are located in

Fujian Province Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its ...

Penghu The Penghu (, Hokkien POJ: ''Phîⁿ-ô͘'' or ''Phêⁿ-ô͘'' ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, located approximately west from the main island of Taiwan, covering an area ...

and Lienchiang are the only two counties that do not have urban townships.

Statistics of townships

Taiwan Province

Fujian Province

List of townships by county

The ROC Army help to clean up in Chia-tung Pingtung after Typhoon Morakot-P1010264

Township names are now

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

using the

Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

romanization system without tone marks. Note that the ''county'' names do not necessarily use Hanyu Pinyin or special case such as Lukang. Colors indicate the common language status of

Formosan languages The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather nine separate subfamilies. The Taiwa ...

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

Matsu dialect The Matsu dialect ( Eastern Min: / ) is the local dialect of Matsu Islands, Taiwan. Native speakers also call it Bàng-huâ (), meaning the language spoken in everyday life. It is recognised as one of the statutory languages for public transpo ...

within each division.

References

{{Administrative divisions of Taiwan navbar Township Populated places in Taiwan

Statistics of townships

Taiwan Province

Fujian Province

List of townships by county

See also

References