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| Capital (and largest city) |
Taihoku | |||||
| Other Cities | Taichū, Takao | |||||
| Language | Japanese, Chinese | |||||
| Religion | Shintoism, Buddhism | |||||
| Established | 17 April 1895 | |||||
Taiwan (Japanese: 台湾 Taiwan, Chinese: 臺灣 Taiwan) is a region of Japan, consisting of a main island and a few surrounding islets and small archipelagos: all the island cluster is located to the north of the Philippines and to the southwest of the Ryukyu Islands. The island's history is somewhat turbulent: after being inhabited since immemorial times by indigenous Austronesians, it became a Dutch colony in the 17th century, before falling into the hands of China a few decades later. At the end of the first Sino-Japanese War, in the last years of the 19th century, it finally became a part of Japan.
Today, the island's population is composed of a more or less equal mix of ethnic Japanese, Chinese and aboriginals: a vast campaign of cultural assimilation and colonization transformed the island's population, with indigenous languages being relegated to their tribal groups, and Chinese and Japanese being the only two widely spoken languages of the region. The island's geography is mountainous and rough, with the interior being heavily forested: the coastal regions, however, are densely urbanized and industrialized.