FORMO’SA

or TAI - WAN, a Japanese island in the Chinese Sea, separated from China by a strait about 80 miles wide; length about 225 miles; average breadth, 70 miles; area, 13,890 sq. miles. A range of mountains (rising to over 14,000 feet) divides it into a western and an eastern part, the former of which (mostly a plain) is occupied by numbers of immigrant Chinese and Japanese, and highly cultivated, producing in abundance rice,sugar, tea, pepper,camphor, oranges, and bananas. East of the mountains is a narrow strip steeply facing the sea. In the mountainous parts are wild tribes of Malayan race. Northern Formosa is liable to earthquakes. Railways have been and are being constructed, and several ports opened to European commerce, chiefly Taihoku (formerly Tai-peh, the capital), Tai-nan, Kiirun, Taichu, Tam-sui, Ke-lung, and Takow; and the trade since then has greatly increased. The chief exports are tea, camphor, sugar, rice; the imports are cottons, woollens opium, . Formosa was ceded to Japan by China in 1895. Roads, railways, telephones, ., are being developed by the Japanese on modern lines, and a university was opened in 1928. Pop. (1930), 4,592,537.