Taiwan (Ume)

Taiwan (Japanese: 台湾 Taiwan; Taiwanese Mandarin: 臺灣 Táiwān; Taiwanese Hokkien: 代ワン Daiwan) is the fourth largest and second most populous of the Japanese main islands. Prior names for the island included Formosa and Takasago. As of October 2018, the population of Taiwan is 27,591,371 and it covers 35,808 square kilometers (13,826 sq mi).

Political Geography
The area known today as the Taiwan Region (台湾地方 Taiwan-chihō) is a politically defined region that consists of 6 prefectures (省 -s'hō), 2 urban prefectures (府 -f'u), 2 rural prefectures (州 -s'hū) and one metropolis (都 -t'o):

Prefectures (省)

 * Momozono Prefecture
 * Giran Prefecture
 * Karen Prefecture
 * Taichū Prefecture
 * Takao Prefecture
 * Hōko Prefecture

Urban Prefectures (府)

 * Tansui Prefecture
 * Tainan Prefecture

Rural Prefectures (州)

 * Hōzan Prefecture
 * Taitō Prefecture

Metropolis (都)

 * Taihoku Prefecture

Demographics
The island of Taiwan has been home to Austronesian aborigines for thousands of years. This changed when settlers from the Fujian area of China began settling on the island. Years of foreign rule have diminished the native population, leaving it at only 2.06% of the total population of the island as of 2018. Other ethnic groups, especially the Han Chinese population, have steadly increased over the years, making it the dominant population on the island.

Main Article: Taiwanese Han (Ume)
The Taiwanese Han population remains the dominant ethnic group on the islands, coming in at approximately 78% of the population. The Taiwanese Han can be categorized into two main groups: Those who arrived prior to the end of World War II and the Chinese Civil War, and those who arrived after the Chinese Civil War in 1949 as refugees from the defeated Nationalist Party of China.

The Taiwanese Han also speak various Sino-Tibetan languages, most notably Taiwanese Hokkien, Taiwanese Mandarin, Taiwanese Hakka, and Tongwa (also known Taiwan Cantonese). Other minority Sino-Tibetan languages spoken include Taiwanese Teochew. Aside from the Sino-Tibetan languages, all Taiwanese Han also know how to speak Japanese, as it is the lingua franca and the language of education and government in Taiwan.

Japanese
The ethnic Japanese population stands at about 16% of the population, making it the second largest ethnic group on the island. The Japanese, like all other ethnic groups on the island, speak a dialect of Japanese known as Taiwan Japanese, which is rather distinct from other forms of Japanese.

Others
Aside from the Han, Japanese, and indigenous peoples, other people groups have lived on the island, most notably the Dutch during the Dutch period of Taiwanese history. Europeans currently make up the largest non-Asian ethnic group on the island, totally at about 124,000 people, mostly Dutch troops and their family of the Royal Occupation Corps (Dutch: Koninklijke Bezettings Korps; Japanese: 在日蘭軍 Zainichi Rangun) stationed in the southwest of the island. Other common European groups include British, German, and Scandinavian expatriates.