If you're looking for information on Taiwan, take a look at Britannica Schools Online:
Taiwan is situated in the South China Sea, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) off the southeast coast of mainland China. The Taiwan Strait separates Taiwan from mainland China to the west, while the East China Sea separates it from Japan to the northeast. The Philippines lie across the Bashi Channel to the south.
"Taiwan." Britannica School. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2016. Web. 1 Feb. 2016. <http://school.ebonline.com/levels/middle/article/277248#208679.toc>.
The library has volumes 1-10 of A History of Taiwan in Comics.
They can be found in the Chinese books collection in a box with this label:
Taiwan was one of the last frontier regions of China to be settled by the Chinese, and foreigners first made the island well known. Portuguese sailors passing it in the late 1500s thought the island was so beautiful that they called it Ilha Formosa (Beautiful Island). The name Formosa became popular for the island among foreigners, but it is no longer widely used. The Chinese eventually began to call the island Taiwan. The Dutch took control of the southwestern part in 1624 and were the dominant power in Taiwan until 1661. During their brief rule they introduced what were then modern farming methods and brought many Chinese settlers from the mainland.
The Dutch were ousted from Taiwan by a Chinese adventurer and supporter of the Ming Dynasty, which was collapsing on the mainland at the time. His name was Zheng Chenggong (Cheng Ch’eng-kung), and he was known to Westerners as Koxinga. Zheng’s forces planned to use Taiwan as a base from which to attack the mainland and drive out the Manchus, who had just established the Qing dynasty in Beijing.
For more information on the history of Taiwan, click on the link below:
"Taiwan." Britannica School. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2016. Web. 1 Feb. 2016. <http://school.ebonline.com/levels/middle/article/277248>.
The indigenous languages of Taiwan are considered to be part of the Austronesian language family.
Austronesian languages, formerly called Malayo-Polynesian languages, family of languages spoken in most of the Indonesian archipelago; all of the Philippines, Madagascar, and the island groups of the Central and South Pacific (except for Australia and much of New Guinea); much of Malaysia; and scattered areas of Vietnam,Cambodia, Laos, and Taiwan. In terms of the number of its languages and of their geographic spread, the Austronesian language family is among the world’s largest.
For more information on Austronesian languages, click on the link below:
"Austronesian languages." Britannica School. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2016. Web. 1 Feb. 2016. <http://school.ebonline.com/levels/middle/article/109806>.
Taiwan’s population reflects the complex history of the island. The earliest inhabitants were various aboriginal tribes that migrated to Taiwan from Southeast Asia several thousand years ago. Today, a few hundred thousand aborigines, belonging to more than a dozen different indigenous language groups, live on the island, most of them in the mountainous interior.
The majority of the people of Taiwan are descendants of emigrants from the mainland provinces of Fujian and Guangdong and are Han Chinese (the majority ethnic group of mainland China). These people are commonly referred to as Taiwanese. In addition, about 15 percent of Taiwan’s population are “mainlanders”—people who fled from the mainland to Taiwan with the Nationalist government in 1949, and their descendents. The mainlanders came from all over China. They speak a form of Mandarin Chinese, and because they long dominated the government of Taiwan, it is the official language.
For more information on the peoples of Taiwan, click on the link below:
"Taiwan." Britannica School. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2016. Web. 1 Feb. 2016. <http://school.ebonline.com/levels/middle/article/277248#208679.toc>.
The library has several books on the history, culture and geography of Taiwan:
These books can be found in:
915 - Geography & 951 History
