Culture


Population - Taiwan has a population of 23,299,716 compared to the U.S. having a population of 307,006,550. (Source: The World Factbook)

From the two maps below its seen that most of the population lives around on the outer parts of Taiwan since most of the island is covered by the central mountain range (a.k.a. Zhongyang range).



File:Population density of Taiwan by district.svgPhysical map of Taiwan


The table below shows the top 10 largest cities in Taiwan and also their population.
This Population chart is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Largest_cities_of_Taiwan


















Agriculture - About 15-24% of Taiwan is still under cultivation. Taiwan is a huge domestic food exporter but the agriculture has dropped within the last 20 years. A decrease in farmers, land, and households did not help Taiwan's agriculture. Taiwan has a huge surplus of rice so the government told the farmers to grow other crops such as wheat, soybeans and corn for a bigger income and so that not all the land is wasted on rice. Recently Taiwan has gone into mushroom canning and it is becoming more and more popular also, betel nuts is one of Taiwan's biggest export. Taiwan also grows sweet potatoes, bananas, peanuts, soybeans, wheat, sugar, pineapples, citrus fruits, crude tea, asparagus, tobacco, cotton, jute, sisal and their famous oolong tea. Also, since Taiwan does not have much room to start with, farmers are starting to argue and fight over land because mechanization is also taking over Taiwan's agriculture. (Source: Taiwan - Agriculture)

From how Taiwan grow their crops they use commercial plantations and specialized horticulture.

Taiwan's diet is very close to chinese diets. With my family we have rice as a main dish and then we have 3 or 4 different types of other dishes which consist of meat, vegetables, and fish. Within Taiwan most of the dishes are the same as other chinese dishes but they have their own variants.

Industry and Tourism - From 1986 to 2002 Taiwan's industry has dropped almost 20% and one of the main reasons is land. Since only so much land can be occupied by buildings and such other things cannot be built to industrialize Taiwan even more. Since Taiwan is not a big country and also they lack natural resources so Taiwan cannot produce much energy. Taiwan then has to borrow energy from other people and they borrow about 98% of their energy which means they only produce 2% of their energy. Another factor is they cannot knock down many historical landmarks and buildings. This means they need to build around the landmarks which makes even less land to industrialize. (Source: Taiwan's Industry)

Yes industry is related to geography because they have most of their land covered by the mountains and it is not much room for them to build on in the first place. Tourism relates to geography because people would want to climb the mountains or just do a little hiking in Taiwan. Industry relates to climate because they need the warm tropical climate to grow certain crops in Taiwan. Tourism is also affected because people who visit Taiwan would want warm temperatures but since it is so humid it increases the temperature and also the "wetness" of the country. Which means most tourists would like to visit over summer but some turn away because of how hot and humid it is.

Cultural activities - Taiwan has many cultural activities just like any other country or state but none of them coincide with the geography and climate. Its mostly warm and humid in Taiwan but no customs are revolved around it and same with the geography, because they have the Yushan mountain range but no customs are revolved around the mountainous region. One of the things that revolves the climate and geography is the food which does coincide with their culture. Taiwan having people being buddhist means that many people eat vegetarian so with Taiwan's climate they are able to grow many different kind of vegetables to sell to restaurants in Taiwan.

Historical events/Cultural activities - Taiwan has not had much historical events that affected the climate but something did happen that might have changed the culture to what it is now.

Taiwan back in 1845 was originally Japanese but after WW2 in 1945 the U.S. told the Japanese to surrender their people to the republic of China or also called Kuomintang. The Kuomintang then "sinicize" the people of Taiwan. Sinicize is a process where non-Han Chinese societies come under the influence of dominant Han Chinese state and society. (Source: Sinicization) Since Taiwan was sinicized their customs turned more chinese but they also have influences from Japan and of course Taiwan.







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