Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China, Nationalist China, or Capitalist China, Free China, the Island of Formosa, or Taipei China, is a country located in the far east of the Asian continent, right in front of what they call "Mainland China," or the People's Republic of China, as it is commonly known to us (also formerly referred to as Communist China, or Red China).
It has an approximate area of 36,191 km2: 20% larger than the Argentine province of Misiones (which covers almost 30,000 km2); which, after Tucumán (22,000 km2), is the smallest in this South American country. With this area, Taiwan ranks 139th in the comparison of all countries in the world.
The most important island of the archipelago that makes up Taiwan has been called "Ilha Formosa" since 1546 by Portuguese navigators, who were the Europeans who first sighted it. It measures approximately 400 km in its maximum length, from North to South, and almost 150 km (almost the distance between San Miguel de Tucumán and Santiago del Estero), from East to West, at its widest point.
Its name derives from the Latin "Formosus"; which in the Iberian languages (Spanish and Galician-Portuguese) of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, decaused into "Formosa"; and which means: "Beautiful."
Taiwan currently has more than 23,000,000 inhabitants; almost half of the population of all of Argentina. Paradoxically, they reside in an area equivalent to one of the smallest provinces (almost 46,000,000).
Taiwan has a democratic republic form of government with a unitary system. Its national holiday is on October 10; which commemorates the establishment of the Chinese republic in Nanjing in 1912; when nationalist revolutionaries overthrew the last Chinese emperor of the Qing dynasty, Puyi, who was only six years old. Thus, China became the first republic in Asia.
To this day, many Taiwanese claim their past as heirs of the Celestial Empire and continuators of that republican feat. So much so that Taiwan maintains the flag adopted by the Chinese nationalists since 1924: a blue rectangle in the upper left quadrant, with a white sun. The rest of the flag displays a red background.
This way, Nationalist China continues the tricolor tradition adopted by most countries in the world for their emblems. The blue represents the sky, the white the color of the sun (unlike the Andean peoples, where the solar disk appears yellow), and the red represents the earth.
More than a hundred smaller islands surrounding Formosa are under Taiwanese control. The most famous are: the Pescadores Islands (Penghu), Orchid Island, Green Island, the Kinmen Archipelago (Quemoy), etc.
These latter islands are particularly curious; as they are less than 6 km from Mainland China; whose coast can be seen with the naked eye. Currently, Kinmen is connected by air with Taiwan and by ferry with Xiamen (Mainland China).
