Northern Taiwan
Northern Taiwan
Taiwan is easy to subdivide if you pay for your rice in Renminbi. The whole place is a province of China. Done. If you pay for your rice in New Taiwan Dollars, however, it gets a little more complicated.
There are 2 Provinces, Fujian and Taiwan, although they are considered "nominal" and have no administrative function, their provincial governments having been dissolved recently. The real administrative divisions are the Special Municipalities, of which there are six; the Counties, of which there are ten; and the Cities, of which, in this context, there are three. Under these divisions we have the Districts, the Mountain Indigenous Districts, the County-administered Cities, the Townships, the Villages and the Neighbourhoods.
Or we could stick to the historic Prefectures set up under the Qing Dynasty: Northern Taiwan, Central Taiwan, Southern Taiwan, Eastern Taiwan and the Outer Islands.
So we're going to start our Taiwan adventure in Northern Taiwan, the place to be if you are familiar with Taiwan's bitter North/South Divide.