TAIPEI - TAIWAN

Taipei City (Chinese: 臺北市 or 台北市; Pinyin: Táiběi Shì) is the capital of the Republic of China (ROC) (commonly known as Taiwan) and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean.

Another coastal city, Tamsui, is about 20 km northwest at the river's mouth on the Taiwan Strait. It lies in the two relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung (基隆河) and Xindian (新店溪) rivers, which join to form the Tamsui River along the city's western border. The city proper (Taipei City) is home to an estimated 2,618,772 people.

Taipei, New Taipei, and Keelung together form the Taipei metropolitan area with a population of 6,900,273. However, they are administered under different local governing bodies. "Taipei" sometimes refers to the whole metropolitan area, while "Taipei City" refers to the city proper. Taipei City proper is surrounded on all sides by New Taipei.

Taipei is the political, economic, and cultural center of Taiwan. The National Palace Museum which has one of the largest collections of Chinese artifacts and artworks in the world is located in Taipei. Considered to be a global city, Taipei is part of a major industrial area. Railways, high speed rail, highways, airports, and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by two airports – Taipei Songshan and Taiwan Taoyuan.

Taipei was founded in the early 18th century and became an important center for overseas trade in the 19th century. The Qing Dynasty in China made Taipei the provincial capital of Taiwan in 1886. When the Japanese acquired Taiwan in 1895 after the First Sino-Japanese War, they retained Taipei as the capital of the island, and also advanced an extensive urban planning in Taipei.

The Republic of China took over the island in 1945 following Japanese surrender. After losing Mainland China to the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War, the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) resettled the ROC government to Taiwan and declared Taipei the provisional capital of the Republic of China in December 1949.


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TAIWAN

Taiwan (Traditional Chinese : 臺灣 ; 台灣 ; Simplified Chinese : 台湾 ; Pinyin : Táiwān, /ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ ty-wahn), also known, especially in the past, as Formosa (from Portuguese: Ilha Formosa, "Beautiful Island"), is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China.

The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China (ROC) following the Chinese Civil War in 1950. Due to this reason and the political status of Republic of China in the United Nations, the name "Taiwan" has also become the pars pro toto common name for the country itself.

Separated from the Asian continent by the 160 km (99 mi) wide Taiwan Strait, Taiwan is 394 km (245 mi) long and 144 kilometres (89 mi) wide. To the northeast are the main islands of Japan and the East China Sea, and the southern end of the Ryukyu Islands of Japan is directly to the east; the Batanes Islands of the Philippines lie to its south across the Bashi Channel.

The mountainous island spans the Tropic of Cancer and is covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation. Other minor islands and islets of the group include the Penghu Islands (Pescadores), Green Island, and Orchid Island, as well as the Diaoyutai Islands (Senkaku islands), which have been controlled by Japan since the 1970s.

Taiwan was ceded to the Empire of Japan by the Qing Empire in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895. In 1945 the Republic of China acquired control of Taiwan from Japan as a result of World War II. Four years later the ROC lost mainland China in the Chinese Civil War to the Communist Party of China and resettled its government to Taiwan.

Taiwan composes the vast majority of the ROC's territory since 1950, and this is one of multiple reasons that the ROC is commonly known as "Taiwan". The political status of Taiwan is disputed because it is claimed by the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949 by the communists on mainland China and considers itself the successor state to the ROC.

In fact, since PRC's establishment, it never controlled any of the territories the ROC government currently governs. Japan had originally acquired Taiwan from the Qing Empire in 1895 under Article 2 of the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

At the end of World War II, Japan renounced all claims to sovereignty over its former colonial possessions, including Taiwan and Penghu (Pescadores), but did not specify to whom Taiwan and Penghu should be assigned. This fact and subsequent handling of Taiwan's sovereignty by the Allies of World War II led to the complex and unresolved issues of the legal and political status of Taiwan.

Taiwan's rapid economic growth in the decades after World War II has transformed it into an industrialized developed country and one of the Four Asian Tigers. This economic rise is known as the Taiwan Miracle.

It is categorized as an advanced economy by the IMF and as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Its advanced technology industry plays a key role in the global economy. Taiwanese companies manufacture a large portion of the world's consumer electronics, although most of them are now made in their factories in mainland China.


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KOWLOON - HONG KONG

Kowloon (Cantonese ; English pronunciation: /ˌkaʊˈluːn/; Traditional Chinese: 九龍; Simplified Chinese : 九龙 ; Standard Chinese Pinyin: Jiǔlóng; Literal meaning : Nine dragons) is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon.

It is bordered by the Lei Yue Mun strait in the east, Mei Foo Sun Chuen and Stonecutter's Island in the west, Tate's Cairn and Lion Rock in the north, and Victoria Harbour in the south.

It had a population of 2,019,533 and a population density of 43,033/km2 in 2006. Kowloon is located north of Hong Kong Island and south of the mainland part of the New Territories. The peninsula's area is approximately 47 km2 or 18.1 mi2. Together with Hong Kong Island, it contains 48% of Hong Kong's total population.

The systematic transcription Kau Lung or Kau-lung was often used in derived place names before World War II, for example Kau-lung Bay instead of Kowloon Bay. Other spellings include Kauloong, Kawloong.

Kowloon comprises the following districts : Kowloon City, Kwun Tong, Sham Shui Po, Wong Tai Sin, Yau Tsim Mong


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