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Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
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Everything about Administrative Divisions Of The Republic Of China totally explainedThe Republic of China currently administers two historical provinces of China (one completely and a small part of another one) and centrally administers two direct-controlled municipalities:
Joint service centres
The central government operates three regional Joint Service Centres (區域聯合服務中心) outside Taipei as outposts of the government ministries in the Executive Yuan. These regions, laid out the Comprehensive National Spatial Development Plan for Taiwan (臺灣地區國土綜合開發計劃), can be considered a de facto level of government, perhaps equivalent to de jure provinces or similar to the English regions. There is one regional service centre for each of the Southern Taiwan Region (with the centre in Kaohsiung), the Central Taiwan Region (Taichung), and the Eastern Taiwan Region (Hualien). The Northern Taiwan Region is served by Taipei, the central government's administrative headquarters and de facto capital.
Quasi-municipality status for Taipei County
On 1 October 2007, per legislation newly coming into force, Taipei County was upgraded to become a quasi-municipality on the same level as Kaohsiung City and Taipei City. It is allowed the organizational and budgetary framework of a de jure municipality, but is still formally styled as a county. The Taichung County and City are lobbying the central government for a similar status.
Mainland China and Mongolia
Additionally, the ROC hasn't officially renounced its claims over mainland China and Mongolia. This results in a division of the mainland into 35 provinces, different from that of the current PRC system.
Structural hierarchy
The number at the end are the amount of entities as of 2004, in areas under ROC control:
Municipality (2)
- District (區; qū; cyu) (23)
- Village (里; lǐ; li) (912)
- Neighborhood (鄰; lín; lin) (17,988)
- Province (2)
- Provincial municipality (5)
- District (26)
- Village (831)
- County (18)
- County-administered city (32)
- Village (里; lǐ; li)
- Township: 226 rural townships (鄉; xiāng; siang) and 61 urban townships (鎮; zhèn; jhen)
The lowest level, the neighbourhood, isn't named, but only enumerated (numbered starting from one in each village). They number in 146,112 (127,242 in Taiwan Province), under 7,809 villages (6,838 in Taiwan). There are altogether 369 secondary entities (rural and urban townships, districts (of both types of municipalities), and county-administered cities).
There are a number cities and counties which are similarly named, but in the ROC administrative scheme, they're completely separate and unconnected. Tainan City and Tainan County, for example, have no special administrative connection with each other. In most cases, the area designated as the city is much smaller than the actual metropolitan area, in contrast with the situation on mainland China where the administrative city tends to be larger than the actual metropolitan area.
Romanization
The romanization used for ROC placenames is Wade-Giles, however consistently ignoring the punctuations (apostrophes and hyphens), except "Keelung" and "Quemoy", which are the more popular versions of romanization. "Chiayi" and "Yilan" are slightly modified forms of the Wade-Giles version, "Chia-i" and "I-lan", respectively. After Tongyong Pinyin was adopted by the current administration in 2002, most municipalities, provinces, and county-level entities retained Wade-Giles, with the aforementioned exceptions. Taipei is the only municipality that uses Hanyu Pinyin as standard and most street signs in Taipei have been replaced with Hanyu Pinyin, except for the place name "Taipei," which has retained the Wade-Giles spelling.
Municipalities
Counties
In Taiwan Province:
In Fujian Province (Wade-Giles: Fuchien):
Provincial municipalities
In Taiwan Province:
Claims over mainland China and Mongolia
After its loss of mainland China to the Communist Party of China in the Chinese Civil War and its retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Kuomintang continued to regard the Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China and hoped to recover the mainland one day. Although in 1991 President Lee Teng-hui stated that the ROC doesn't challenge the right of the Communist Party of China to rule in the mainland, the ROC has never formally (by means of the National Assembly) renounced sovereignty over mainland China (including Xinjiang and Tibet) and Greater Mongolia. Most observers feel that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party would much prefer to officially renounce such sovereignty. This ambiguous situation results in large part because a formal renouncement of sovereignty over mainland China could be taken as a declaration of Taiwan independence, which would be unpopular among some circles on Taiwan and could likely bring about military action by the People's Republic of China.
Accordingly, the official first-order divisions of Republic of China remain the historical divisions of China immediately prior to the loss of mainland China by the KMT with Taipei and Kaohsiung elevated as central municipalities. These are: 35 provinces, 2 areas, 1 special administrative region, 14 centrally-administered (provincial-level) municipalities, 14 leagues, and 4 special banners. For second-order divisions, under provinces and special administrative regions, there are counties, province-controlled cities (56), bureaus (34) and management bureaus (7). Under provincial-level municipalities there are districts, and under leagues there are banners (127).
Maps of China and the world published in Taiwan sometimes show provincial and national boundaries as they were in 1949, not matching the current administrative structure as decided by the Communist Party of China post-1949 and including outer Mongolia, northern Burma, and Tannu Uriankhai (part of which is present-day Tuva) as part of China (territories over which the PRC has renounced sovereignty). Recent moves by the DPP administration have been changing maps in school textbooks and official maps issued by the government to reflect the current divisions instituted by the PRC.
The current jurisdiction of the ROC is referred to as the "Free Area of the Republic of China" in the Constitution. In most ordinary legislation, the term "Taiwan Area" is used in place of the "Free Area", while Mainland China is referred to as the "Mainland Area". According to the Act Governing Relations Between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, originally promulgated in 1992 and last amended in 2004, the "Taiwan Area" refers to "Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and any other area under the effective control of the Government" and the "Mainland Area" refers to "the territory of the Republic of China outside the Taiwan Area."
- The capital of Taiwan Province was moved to Jhongsing Village from Taipei in the 1960s.
- Taipei and Kaohsiung were elevated in 1967 and 1979, respectively, after the ROC government had moved to Taiwan in 1949.
Criticism of political divisions
Historically the most controversial part of the political division system of the ROC has been the existence of Taiwan Province, as its existence was part of a larger controversy over the political status of Taiwan. In the mid-1990s, the provincial government was essentially stripped of almost all of its authority, but it remains a streamlined entity.
There has been some criticism of the current administrative scheme as being inefficient and inconducive to regional planning. In particular, most of the administrative cities are much smaller than the actual metropolitan areas, and there are no formal means for coordinating policy between an administrative city and its surrounding areas.
However, the likelihood of consolidation remains low. Many of the cities have a political geography which may be very different from their surrounding counties, making the prospect of consolidation highly politically charged. For example, while the Kuomintang argues that combining Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City into a metropolitan Taipei region would allow for better regional planning, the Democratic Progressive Party argues that this is merely an excuse to eliminate the government of Taipei County, which it has at times controlled, by swamping it with votes from Taipei City and Keelung City, which tend to vote Kuomintang.
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