Provincial city (Taiwan)

An autonomous municipality,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> county-level city or city,Template:Efn native lang previously provincial city, is a de jure second-level administrative division unit in the Republic of China (Taiwan).<ref name="auto">Template:Cite web</ref>

The provincial cities were formerly under the jurisdiction of provinces, but the provinces were streamlined and effectively downsized to non-self-governing bodies in 1998, in 2018 all provincial governmental organs were formally abolished.<ref name="auto"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Provincial cities along counties, are presently regarded as de facto principal subdivisions directed by the central government of the ROC.

History

The first administrative divisions entitled "city" were established in the 1920s when Taiwan was under Japanese rule. At this time cities were under the jurisdiction of prefectures. After the World War II, nine (9) out of eleven (11) prefectural cities established by the Japanese government were reform into provincial cities. Their roman spellings are also changed to reflect the official language shift from Japanese to Mandarin Chinese, but characters remain the same.

Spelling changes of provincial cities in 1945

Character	Japanese (before 1945)	Chinese (after 1945)		Character	Japanese (before 1945)	Chinese (after 1945)
Template:Lang	Taihoku	Taipei		Template:Lang	Kagi	Chiayi
Template:Lang	Kīrun	Keelung		Template:Lang	Tainan	Tainan
Template:Lang	Shinchiku	Hsinchu		Template:Lang	Takao	Kaohsiung
Template:Lang	Taichū	Taichung		Template:Lang	Heitō	Pingtung
Template:Lang	Shōka	Changhua

The reform was based on the Laws on the City Formation (Template:Lang) of the Republic of China. This law was passed in the early 20th century. The criteria for being a provincial city included being the provincial capital as well as having a population of over 200,000, or over 100,000 if the city had particular significance in politics, economics, and culture. The division reform in 1945 had some compromises between the Japanese and the Chinese systems, some of the cities with population under the criteria were still be established as provincial cities.

After the government of the Republic of China relocated to Taipei, Taiwan in 1949, the population criterion for provincial cities was raised to 500,000 in the Guidelines on the Implementation of Local Autonomy in the Counties and Cities of Taiwan Province (Template:Lang), which was passed in 1981. It was later raised again to 600,000. Since the streamline of provinces in 1998, provincial cities are all directly under the central government, and are simply referred to as cities.

The People's Republic of China (PRC), which claims Taiwan as its 23rd province, has all of its provincial cities classified as county-level city.

Date	Addition	Removal	No.	Description
1945-10	Changhua, Chiayi, Hsinchu, Kaohsiung, Keelung, Pingtung, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>		9	Reorganised from the prefecture-administered cities in the period under Japanese rule.
1950-08-16		Chiayi	8	Merged into Chiayi County and became a county-administered city
1951-12-01		Changhua, Hsinchu, Pingtung	5	Downgraded to county-administered cities
1967-07-01		Taipei	4	Upgraded to a special municipality
1979-07-01		Kaohsiung	3	Upgraded to a special municipality
1982-07-01	Chiayi, Hsinchu		5	Upgraded from county-administered cities
2010-12-25		Taichung, Tainan	3	Merge with Taichung County and Tainan County, and upgraded to special municipalities
Current cities: Chiayi, Hsinchu, Keelung (3).

Current cities

Template:See also Currently, the Local Government Act of the Ministry of the Interior applies for the creation of a city, in which a city needs to have a population between 500,000 and 1,250,000 and occupies major political, economical and cultural roles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Note that all three existing cities are not qualified for the population test, they were built for historical reasons.

There are currently three cities, all in Taiwan Province:

Name<ref name="Official_name">Template:Cite web</ref>	Chinese	Hànyǔ Pīnyīn	Wade–Giles	Tongyòng Pinyin	Hokkien Pe̍h-ōe-jī	Hakka Pha̍k-fa-sṳ	Area	City Seat		Establishment
Chiayi	Template:Lang	Jiāyì	Chia¹-i⁴	Jiayì	Ka-gī	Kâ-ngi	60.03 km2	East District	Template:Lang	1982-07-01
Hsinchu	Template:Lang	Xīnzhú	Hsin¹-chu²	Sinjhú	Sin-tek	Sîn-chuk	104.10 km2	North District	Template:Lang	1982-07-01
Keelung	Template:Lang	Jīlóng	Chi¹-lung²	Jilóng	Ke-lâng	Kî-lùng	132.76 km2	Zhongzheng District	Template:Lang	1945-10-25

Their self-governed bodies (executive and legislature) regulated by the Local Government Act are:

Name	Executive			Legislature
	Government	Mayor	Current Mayor	City Council	No. of seats
Chiayi	Chiayi City Government	Mayor of Chiayi	Huang Min-hui	Chiayi City Council	24
Hsinchu	Hsinchu City Government	Mayor of Hsinchu	Ann Kao	Hsinchu City Council	33
Keelung	Keelung City Government	Mayor of Keelung	George Hsieh	Keelung City Council	32

See also

• Cities of Japan
• Political divisions of Taiwan (1895–1945)
• Prefecture-level city of China