Circle the area on this map
D. Modern humans have inhabited Taiwan for 20,000 to 30,000 years. It wasn’t until Dutch colonial rule in the 1600s that waves of ethnic Han Chinese began migrating to the island, overwhelming the indigenous population. Chinese emperors ruled Taiwan for 216 years, and the Japanese Empire ruled for 50 years. Taiwan was under martial law from 1949 to 1987, and its first direct presidential election was in 1996.
B. Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 after being defeated by Communist forces under Mao Zedong. Chiang declared martial law on Taiwan to suppress any opposition. His military government imprisoned or executed 140,000 people as political opponents in Taiwan.
C. Chiang made Taipei his temporary capital after fleeing the mainland, where the cities of Chongqing, Nanjing, and Wuhan had all served as ROC capitals at different times. Chiang remained in his “temporary” capital of Taipei until he died in 1975.
D. Taiwan’s main island, known historically as Formosa, is 112 miles east of the mainland across the Taiwan Strait. The East China Sea lies to the north of Taiwan, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait directly to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest. In all, the ROC controls 168 islands. The name Formosa dates to 1542 from Portuguese sailors who called it Ilha Formosa, or "beautiful island.”