History of Taiwan
The history of the island of Taiwan dates back tens of thousands of years to the earliest known evidence of human habitation. The sudden appearance of a culture based on agriculture around 3000 BC is believed to reflect the arrival of the ancestors of today's Taiwanese indigenous peoples. People from China gradually came into contact with Taiwan by the time of the Yuan dynasty and Han Chinese people started settling there by the early 17th century. The island became known by the West when Portuguese explorers discovered it in the 16th century and named it Formosa. Between 1624 and 1662, the south of the island was colonized by the Dutch headquartered in Zeelandia in present-day Anping, Tainan whilst the Spanish built an outpost in the north, which lasted until 1642 when the Spanish fortress in Keelung was seized by the Dutch. These European settlements were followed by an influx of Hoklo and Hakka immigrants from Fujian and Guangdong.
In 1662, Koxinga defeated the Dutch and established a base of operations on the island. His descendants were defeated by the Qing dynasty in 1683 and their territory in Taiwan was annexed by the Qing dynasty. Over two centuries of Qing rule, Taiwan's population increased by over two million and became majority Han Chinese due to illegal cross-strait migrations from mainland China and encroachment on Taiwanese indigenous territory. Due to the continued expansion of Chinese settlements, Qing-governed territory eventually encompassed the entire western plains and the northeast. This process accelerated in the later stages of Qing rule when settler colonization of Taiwan was actively encouraged. The Qing ceded Taiwan and Penghu to Japan after losing the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895. Taiwan experienced industrial growth and became a productive rice- and sugar-exporting Japanese colony. During the Second Sino-Japanese War it served as a base for invasions of China, and later Southeast Asia and the Pacific during World War II.
In 1945, following the end of hostilities in World War II, the nationalist government of the Republic of China, led by the Kuomintang, took control of Taiwan. The legality and nature of its control of Taiwan, including transfer of sovereignty, is debated. In 1949, after losing control of mainland China in the Chinese Civil War, the ROC government under the KMT withdrew to Taiwan where Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law. The KMT ruled Taiwan as a single-party state for forty years until democratic reforms in the 1980s. The first-ever direct presidential election was held in 1996. During the post-war period, Taiwan experienced rapid industrialization and economic growth known as the "Taiwan Miracle", and was one of the "Four Asian Tigers".
Prehistory
In the Late Pleistocene, sea levels were about lower than at present, exposing the floor of the shallow Taiwan Strait as a land bridge. A concentration of vertebrate fossils has been found in the channel between the Penghu Islands and Taiwan, including a partial jawbone designated Penghu 1, apparently belonging to a previously unknown species of genus Homo, dated 450,000 to 190,000 years ago. The oldest evidence of modern human presence on Taiwan consists of fragments and a tooth found at Chouqu and Gangzilin, in Zuojhen District, estimated to be between 20,000 and 30,000 years old. The oldest artefacts are chipped-pebble tools of the Paleolithic Changbin culture found in Changbin, Taitung, dated 15,000 to 5,000 years ago. The same culture is found at sites at Eluanbi on the southern tip of Taiwan, persisting until 5,000 years ago. Analysis of spores and pollen grains in sediment of Sun Moon Lake suggests that traces of slash-and-burn agriculture started in the area 11,000 years ago, and ended 4,200 years ago, when abundant remains of rice cultivation were found. At the beginning of the Holocene 10,000 years ago, sea levels rose, forming the Taiwan Strait and cutting off the island from the Asian mainland.In 2011, the ~8,000-year-old Liangdao Man skeleton was found on Liang Island. The only Paleolithic burial that has been found on Taiwan was in Chenggong in the southeast, dating from about 4000 BC.
Around 3,000 BC, the Neolithic Dapenkeng culture abruptly appeared and quickly spread around the coast. Their sites are characterised by corded-ware pottery, polished stone adzes and slate points. The inhabitants cultivated rice and millet, but were also heavily reliant on marine shells and fish. Most scholars believe this culture is not derived from the Changbin culture, but was brought across the Strait by the ancestors of today's Taiwanese aborigines, speaking early Austronesian languages. Some of these people later migrated from Taiwan to the islands of Southeast Asia and throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Malayo-Polynesian languages are now spoken across a huge area, but form only one branch of the Austronesian family, the rest of whose branches are found only on Taiwan.
Trade links with the Philippine archipelago continued from the early 2nd millennium BC, including the use of jade from eastern Taiwan.
The Dapenkeng culture was succeeded by a variety of cultures throughout the island, including the Tahu and Yingpu.
Iron appeared in such cultures as the Niaosung Culture.
The earliest metal artifacts were trade goods, but by around 400 AD wrought iron was being produced locally using bloomeries, a technology possibly introduced from the Philippines.
Chinese contact and settlement
Early records of possible visits
Early Chinese histories refer to visits to eastern islands that some historians identify with Taiwan. Troops of the Three Kingdoms state of Eastern Wu are recorded visiting an island known as Yizhou in the spring of 230. Some scholars have identified this island as Taiwan while others do not. The Book of Sui relates that Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty sent three expeditions to a place called "Liuqiu" early in the 7th century. The Liuqiu described by the Book of Sui produced little iron, had no writing system, taxation, or penal code, and was ruled by a king. The natives used stone blades and practiced slash-and-burn agriculture. Later the name Liuqiu referred to the island chain to the northeast of Taiwan, but some scholars believe it may have referred to Taiwan in the Sui period.Chinese fishermen had settled on the Penghu Islands near Taiwan by 1171. Although Penghu is not part of Taiwan island, it is currently governed as part of Taiwan Area by the Republic of China. In 1171, "Bisheye" bandits, a Taiwanese people related to the Bisaya of the Visayas, landed on Penghu and plundered fields planted by Chinese migrants. The Song dynasty sent soldiers after them, and from that time on Song patrols regularly visited Penghu in the spring and summer. A local official, Wang Dayou, stationed troops there to prevent depredations from the Bisheye.
Yuan dynasty
During the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, Han Chinese people started visiting Taiwan. The first Yuan emperor, Kublai Khan, sent officials to the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1292 to demand its loyalty, but the officials ended up in Taiwan and mistook it for Ryukyu. After three soldiers were killed, the delegation immediately retreated. Another expedition was sent in 1297. Wang Dayuan visited Taiwan in 1349 and provided the first detailed written description of Taiwan. He mentioned the presence of Chuhou pottery from modern Lishui, suggesting that Chinese merchants had already visited the island.Wang described Taiwan as the first overseas kingdom or country「海外諸國，蓋由此始」“Overseas countries start from here”. He found no Chinese settlers there but many on Penghu.
He called different regions of Taiwan Liuqiu and Pisheye. Liuqiu was a vast land of huge trees and mountains named Cuilu, Zhongman, Futou, and Dazhi. A mountain could be seen from Penghu. He climbed the mountain and could see the coasts. Wang described a rich land with fertile fields that was hotter than Penghu and had people whose customs differed from Penghu. They did not have boats and oars but only rafts. The men and women bound their hair and wore colored garments. They obtained salt from boiled sea water and liquor from fermented sugarcane juice. There were barbarian lords and chiefs that were respected by the people and they had a bone-and-flesh relationship between father and son. They practiced cannibalism against their enemies. The land's products included gold, beans, millet, sulphur, beeswax, deer hide, leopards, and moose. They accepted pearls, agates, gold, beads, dishware, and pottery as items of trade.
Pisheye was located to the east. It had extensive mountains and plains but the people did not engage in much agriculture or produce any products. The weather was hotter than Liuqiu. Its people wore their hair in tufts, tattooed their bodies with black juice, and wrapped red silk and yellow cloth around their heads. Pisheye had no chief. Its people hid in wild mountains and solitary valleys. They practiced raiding and plundering by boat. Kidnapping and slave trading were common.
Ming dynasty
By the early 16th century, increasing numbers of Chinese fishermen, traders and pirates were visiting the southwestern part of the island. Some merchants from Fujian were familiar enough with the indigenous peoples of Taiwan to speak Formosan languages. The people of Fujian sailed closer to Taiwan in the mid-16th century to trade with Japan while evading Ming authorities. Chinese who traded in Southeast Asia also began taking an East Sea Compass Course that passed southwestern and southern Taiwan. Some of them traded with the Taiwanese aborigines. Taiwan was referred to as Xiaodong dao and Dahui guo, a corruption of Tayouan, a tribe that lived on an islet near modern Tainan from which the name "Taiwan" is derived. By the late 16th century, Chinese from Fujian were settling in southwestern Taiwan. In 1593, Ming officials started issuing licenses for Chinese junks to trade in northern Taiwan, acknowledging already existing illegal trade.Initially Chinese merchants arrived in northern Taiwan and sold iron and textiles to the aboriginal peoples in return for coal, sulfur, gold, and venison. Later the southwest became the primary destination for its mullet fish. Some fishing junks camped on Taiwan's shores and many began trading with the indigenous people for deer products. The southwestern Taiwanese trade was of minor importance until after 1567 when it was used as a location outside of Ming control to circumvent the ban on Sino-Japanese trade, particularly to access Japanese silver. The Chinese bought deerskins from the aborigines and sold them to the Japanese for a large profit.
Chen Di visited Taiwan in 1603 on an expedition against the Wokou pirates led by Ming general Shen Yourong. The pirates were defeated and they met a native chieftain who presented them with gifts. Chen recorded these events in an account of Taiwan known as Dongfanji and described the natives of Taiwan and their lifestyle. Chen Di's book also indicates a substantial number of Chinese settlers who were living together with the indigenous people on Taiwan. Later, General Shen returned again and commanded a force to Keelung, driving off a Tokugawa shogunate expedition to seize the island.
When a Portuguese ship sailed past southwestern Taiwan in 1596, several of its crew members who had been shipwrecked there in 1582 noticed that the land had become cultivated, presumably by settlers from Fujian. When the Dutch arrived in 1623, they found about 1,500 Chinese visitors and residents. A small minority brought Chinese plants with them and grew crops such as apples, oranges, bananas, watermelons. Some estimates of the Chinese population put it at 2,000 over two villages, one of which would become Tainan. There was also a significant population of Chinese living in an aboriginal village where the villagers spoke a creole language incorporating many Chinese words.