A Quick Tour of Taiwan Trivia Quiz

Answer: Kaohsiung

In 2010, Kaohsiung City expanded by joining with Kaohsiung County. The total population in 2011 was about 2.8 million. Taipei had about 6.5 million people in 2011, but only if the 3.9 million of the separately-administered surrounding area known as "New Taipei" were included. Taipei City and Taichung had about 2.6 million people each in 2011, but neither is a seaport.

Answer: Hsinchu

The Hakkas are a distinctive group spread widely throughout southern China. Although considered to be Han Chinese and not an "ethnic" minority (such as the Tibetans, Miao, or Zhuang), their dialect and customs distinguish them from the Han populations in the south. Taiwan's most famous Hakka is Lee Teng-hui, who served as president of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1988 to 2000.

Answer: West Lake

The beautiful West Lake (Xi Hu) is the most famous attraction of the city of Hangzhou. It is located in China's Zhejiang province.

Answer: Austronesian

Taiwan is thought to be the original home of the Austronesian language family, which is now spread over thousands of miles in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Aboriginal people make up about two percent of the population of Taiwan. Of their 26 languages, ten are now extinct and several others endangered.

Answer: Southern Fujian

Most inhabitants of today's Taiwan are descended from immigrants from the southern part of Fujian province (especially the cities of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou) who came to Taiwan in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The dialect of Chinese spoken in that region, Southern Min, also predominates in Taiwan.

Answer: Tainan

The site of Fort Zeelandia is in the Anping District of Tainan City, in southwestern Taiwan. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) built the fort in 1624-1634, but lost it to the Chinese pirate leader Zheng Chenggong (or Koxinga) in 1661.

Tamsui (Danshui), on the coast near Taipei, was held by Spain from 1629 to 1638, and then by the Dutch until 1661, but it wasn't the capital of the colony.

Answer: False

The imposing structure was built by the Japanese between 1912 and 1919, at a cost of 2.8 million yen, to provide suitably impressive headquarters for the Japanese governor-general. Japan acquired Taiwan in 1895, during the first Sino-Japanese War, and ruled the island until 1945.

Answer: Grass Mountain

That's Caoshan in Chinese, so-called because the Japanese burned off forest cover to discourage the local population from poaching valuable resources such as sulfur. When Chiang Kai-shek arrived, he renamed the mountain in honor of one of his favorite thinkers, the Ming-dynasty Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming (1472-1529). Today Yangmingshan is known for its hot springs, beautiful scenery, and venomous snakes.

Answer: True

Jade Mountain is the highest in Taiwan. And at 3,952 meters it's 176 meters higher than Japan's Mt. Fuji -- and higher than any other peak in Japan or Korea. The Japanese named it Niitakayama (New High Mountain). The coded signal sent to the Japanese carrier strike force to launch the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 was "Climb Mount Niitaka" (Niitakayama nobore).

The mountain has been depicted on Taiwan's money, specifically the NT $1,000 bill, since 2005 (replacing the avuncular image of Chiang Kai-shek).

Answer: Diaoyu Islands

The pinyin spelling was a giveaway. The Pescadore Islands (Penghu) in the Taiwan Strait have been controlled by the ROC government in Taipei since the retreat from the Mainland in 1949, as has the island of Matsu (Mazu), located just off the Fujian coast near the city of Fuzhou, and Lan Yu (Orchid Island) located off the southeast coast of Taiwan.

The uninhabited Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Islands northeast of Taiwan are disputed by Japan and China (both PRC and ROC), but the Japanese Coast Guard and Maritime Self-Defense Force have effective control of the tiny islands.