The first administrative divisions entitled "city" were established in the 1920s when Taiwan was under Japanese rule. At this time cities were under the jurisdiction of prefectures. After the World War II, nine (9) out of eleven (11) prefectural cities established by the Japanese government were reorganized into provincial cities based on the Laws on the City Formation (市組織法).
However, the populations of Hualien (Karenkō) and Yilan (Giran) were too low to become a provincial city, but they were of more importance than urban townships. Thus the Scheme on the Local Rules in Various Counties and Cities of Taiwan Province (臺灣省各縣市實施地方自治綱要) provided for the creation of county-administered cities along with urban townships and rural townships.
Spelling changes of provincial cities in 1945
County-administered cities formed in 1945
County-administered cities formed in 1951
Character
Japanese (before 1945)
Chinese (after 1945)
Character
Japanese (before 1945)
Chinese (after 1945)
宜蘭
Giran
Yilan
新竹
Shinchiku
Hsinchu
花蓮(港)
Karenkō
Hualien
彰化
Shōka
Changhua
嘉義
Kagi
Chiayi
屏東
Heitō
Pingtung
In 1951, a large scale administrative division reorganization took place in Taiwan. The size of counties shrink and the county-administered districts were abolished. This puts county-administered cities and townships into the same level in the hierarchy. Four provincial cities were also downgraded to county-administered cities after this reorganization. Since county-administered cities are based on the law for Taiwan Province, Kinmen and Lienchiang Counties of Fukien Province do not have any city under their jurisdiction.
The population criterion was originally 50,000 in the 1940s, but was raised to 100,000 in 1959, again in 1977 to 150,000, and in 2015 it was lower back to 100,000. Under the current. Currently, the Local Government Act regulates the creation of a county-administered city, in which a city needs to have a population between 100,000 and 500,000 and occupies major political, economical and cultural roles. Not all existing county-administered cities are qualified for the population test, they were built for historical reasons.
Current county-administered cities
There are currently fourteen (14) county-administered cities, all in Taiwan Province:
Each county-administered city has its own local self-government bodies as stipulated in the Local Government Act: a city office (市公所) and a city council (市民代表大會). The mayor (市長) and members of the city council (市民代表) are elected by the residents of the city. A county-administered city is further divided into urban villages (里).
Timeline
Below, unless noted otherwise in parentheses, the newly created cities were towns that exceeded the 150,000 criteria.
The population requirement of county-administered cities changed to 150,000. [Yonghe] Originally urban township (鎮; Zhèn). [Zhonghe] Originally rural township (鄉; Xiāng).
^ abcdefHas an elected executive and an elected legislative council.
^ abcHas an appointed district administrator for managing local affairs and carrying out tasks commissioned by superior agency.
^Has an elected village administrator for managing local affairs and carrying out tasks commissioned by superior agency.
Notes
^Also known as the Taiwan area or Tai–Min area (Chinese: 臺閩地區; lit. 'Taiwan–Fujian area')
^The mainland area consists of Mainland China, Tibet and (previously) Outer Mongolia
^Special municipalities, cities, and county-administered cities are all called shi (Chinese: 市; lit. 'city')
^Nominal; provincial governments have been abolished
^Constitutionally having the same structure as the free area, these are currently under the Chinese Communist Party control with a different structure
^Sometimes called cities (Chinese: 市) or provincial cities (Chinese: 省轄市) to distinguish them from special municipalities and county-administered cities
^There are two types of townships: rural townships or xīang (Chinese: 鄉) and urban townships or zhèn (Chinese: 鎮)
^Villages in rural townships are known as tsūn (Chinese: 村), those in other jurisdictions are known as lǐ (Chinese: 里)
1 The provinces are merely retained as nominal entities within the constitutional structure, as they have no governing power following the formal dissolution of the provincial administrative organs in 2018. Cities and counties are de facto regarded as the principal constituent divisions of the ROC.
Sarah Shair-Rosenfield (November 2020). "Taiwan Combined"(PDF). The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
