Geography of Taiwan

By Andy Cheng

Introduction
Taiwan ( also known as ROC: Republic of China) is a small island right next to mainland China, which is surrounded by sea water, thats the reason why Taiwan is famous for sea food. In 1544, a Portuguese ship passed by this isolated island, and the crews on this ship were impressed by the beauty of it, so they named it Ilha Formosa which means beautiful island in Portuguese. So Taiwan is also known as and in traditional and simplified Chinese and Formosa in English.

Climate
The climate in Taiwan is generally marine, weather varies widely by seasons in northern Taiwan and mountains. In southern Taiwan, on the other hand, its warm and humid all year, is mostly tropical weather. Cloudiness is very common in the north of Taiwan; rain is very common in the south, about 90% of annual precipitation falls during summertime. In addition to that, typhoons (also known as hurricane) strike Taiwan every summer, on average about four strike per year.

Mountains
Even though Taiwan looks quite small, therere still lots of longitudinal mountains there, heres few:

Central Mountain Range (zhong yang shan mai: )

Snow Mountain Range (Xuexhan Range, xueshan shan mai, )

Alishan mountain Range (alishan shan mai, )

Jade Mountain Range ( Yushan Mountain Range, yushan shan mai, . About 3,952 m (12,966 ft) high.

Rivers
There are lots of rivers distributed in Taiwan, their fountainheads are mostly from Central Mountain Range. Three rivers are very well known: one is Danshui River ( , dan shui he), another is Zhuoshui River (, zhuo shui xi), the other is Siouguluan River ()

Danshui River
The river flows right around the Taipei city ( the capital of Taiwan), its about 159 km (99 mi) long

Zhuoshui River
Zhuoshui River is the longest river known in Taiwan, around 186km long. Its an unofficial boundary between the north and the south of Taiwan. It empties into the Taiwan Strait.

Siouguluan River
Its called Siouguluan River because it flows around Siouguluan Mountain Range. Its about 104 km (65 mi) long before flowing into the Pacific Ocean.

Earthquakes
Earthquakes occur frequently in Taiwan because its right on the boundary between the Eurasian Plate and Philippine Plate. The worst one of all in Taiwan is 921 earthquake in 1999 ( jiu er yi da di zhen, , 1999 nian ji ji da di zhen, 1999 ), 2,416 people were killed, over 11,000 seriously injured, and NT$300billion worth of damage was done.

921 Earthquake Museum of Taiwan

The background of the museum itself is a junior high school called Guangfu junior high school (guang fu guo zhong, ) ,most of the facilities were destroyed during this devastating earthquake, including the tracks, hallways, etc. So its the best place to be chosen to be the site of the memorial museum.

Heres the website of the museum:

www.921emt.edu.tw

Cities
Taiwan has lots of cities, its even divided into counties, as shown below:

Cities (cont.)
Taiwan also has its own capital, which is called Taipei City, its famous for museums, memorial halls, and Taipei 101.

Taipei City
Taipei City ( , tai bei shi ) the largest city and capital in Taiwan, lots of memorial halls and museums are located here, including National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Chiang Kai-shek was the former of Taiwan.

Taipei 101
The Taipei 101 is a landmark skyscraper located in Taipei City, its also formally known as Taipei World Financial Center. Its now the second tallest building in the world, the first one is Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Taipei 101 (cont.)

Its claimed that it can withstand the hurricane wind and even earthquakes because of its secret structure: tuned mass damper, its based on the law of physics. Also, its elevator system set a new record in 2004 with top ascending speeds of 16.83 m (55.22 ft) per second (60.6 km/h, 37.7 mi/h).

Symbols on the building

In addition to the Taipei 101, it combines with the traditional Chinese culture symbols, for instance, the picture at the lower-right corner shows the symbol on the edge of the building. This symbols represents Ruyi: in Chinese, which means luck.

Come and visit this website for more information

http://www.taipei-101.com.tw/index_en.htm

Reference
http://www.wra.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=14298& CtNode=4347 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page http://www.google.com/

The End