Introduction

摘要

Taiwan is an island-state in East Asia located some 180 km from the southeastern coast of Mainland China across the Taiwan Strait. Its climate ranges from tropical in the south to subtropical up north, and is affected by the East Asian Monsoon. Like countries located in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is struck occasionally by typhoons: an average of four each year and had the wettest known ones. Physically, it is a geologically active tilted fault block formed on a complex convergent boundary between several tectonic plates. Hence, of its 35,883 square kilometres area, the eastern two-third are rugged mountain ranges, with peaks over 3500m, spanning almost 400 kilometres from its northern to southern end. The remaining one third comprises of mostly flat to gently rolling plains, and is at present densely populated with over 23 million Taiwanese people, mostly Han Chinese immigrated from China in the 17 th century.