Taiwan Trivia
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50 free Taiwan trivia questions with answers. Taiwan trivia for travellers, expats, students and quiz nights. The history round runs from the Portuguese sailors who wrote 'Ilha Formosa' on their maps in 1542, through Dutch Fort Zeelandia, Koxinga's Kingdom of Tungning, Qing annexation, fifty years of Japanese rule, the 228 incident, the KMT's 1949 retreat, 38 years of martial law and the first direct presidential election in 1996, right up to Asia's first same-sex marriage law and President Lai. Then the island itself: why Yushan makes Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island, the marble of Taroko Gorge, Sun Moon Lake, the Tropic of Cancer, typhoons and the 921 earthquake, plus Kinmen and Penghu. There are rounds on the economy (TSMC, Acer, Foxconn and the 'Taiwan Miracle'), on food (bubble tea, night markets, beef noodle soup, stinky tofu, Din Tai Fung) and on culture from Teresa Teng and Jay Chou to Ang Lee and Cloud Gate. Easy questions first, then ones only someone who has ridden the high-speed rail to Zuoying will get. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which river, about 186 kilometres long, is the longest in Taiwan?
Zhuoshui River
The Zhuoshui River, about 186 kilometres long, is Taiwan's longest; it drains westward from the Central Mountain Range and marks the traditional north–south divide.
Q 02Which sea washes Taiwan's eastern coast?
Philippine Sea
The Philippine Sea lies off Taiwan's east coast, where the island drops steeply into the Pacific; the East China Sea lies to the north and the South China Sea to the southwest.
Q 03Which European trading concern built Fort Zeelandia on a sandbar called Tayouan in 1624?
The Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company built Fort Zeelandia in 1624 as its base for the China and Japan trade; 'Tayouan', the sandbar's name, later became 'Taiwan'.
Q 04Which Ming loyalist, also known as Zheng Chenggong, expelled the Dutch and founded Tungning?
Koxinga
Koxinga, the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong, besieged Fort Zeelandia and expelled the Dutch in 1662; his Kingdom of Tungning fell to the Qing in 1683.
Q 05In which year was Taiwan ceded to Japan after the First Sino-Japanese War?
1895
Pro-Qing officials briefly proclaimed a 'Republic of Formosa' in May 1895 to resist the handover.
Q 06On what date did the Republic of China government evacuate to Taiwan and make Taipei its capital?
7 December 1949
7 December 1949 was the day the Nationalist government formally moved its seat to Taipei after losing the mainland; roughly two million soldiers, officials and civilians fled to the island, joining about six million residents.
Q 07The February 28 incident of 1947 began with what event?
The shooting of a civilian
The shooting of a civilian bystander by a Tobacco Monopoly agent in Taipei on 27 February 1947 sparked island-wide protests, crushed by Nationalist troops; the date is now Peace Memorial Day.
Q 08In which year did Chiang Ching-kuo lift Taiwan's martial law, imposed in 1949?
1987
1987 ended 38 years of martial law on 15 July; the Democratic Progressive Party had been founded illegally the year before as the first opposition party.
Q 09Who became the first Taiwan-born ROC president in 1988 and later won the first direct election?
Lee Teng-hui
Lee Teng-hui, a Cornell-trained agricultural economist, succeeded Chiang Ching-kuo in January 1988 and went on to win the first popular presidential vote with 54 percent.
Q 10In 1971 the United Nations voted to recognise which government in place of the ROC?
The People's Republic
The People's Republic took China's UN seat under Resolution 2758 on 25 October 1971, and the ROC delegation walked out before the vote.
Q 11Under what name does Taiwan compete at the Olympic Games?
Chinese Taipei
Chinese Taipei has been the Olympic name since the 1981 Nagoya agreement with the IOC; a 2018 referendum on competing as 'Taiwan' at Tokyo 2020 failed.
Q 12On 17 May 2019, Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalise what?
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage became law on 17 May 2019 after the Constitutional Court's 2017 ruling that the marriage code was unconstitutional and its two-year deadline.
Q 13Who won Taiwan's presidential election in January 2024?
Lai Ching-te
Lai Ching-te of the DPP won on 13 January 2024 with about 40 percent of the vote in a three-way race, succeeding Tsai Ing-wen in May.
Q 21Taroko Gorge, carved by the Liwu River, cuts through which stone?
Marble
Marble walls, metamorphosed from limestone, line the gorge the Liwu River carved; veterans built the Central Cross-Island Highway through it between 1956 and 1960.
Q 22Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan's largest body of water, is home to which indigenous people?
The Thao
The Thao, one of Taiwan's smallest recognised indigenous peoples, live on the lake's shore at Ita Thao village; swimming is normally banned, except for a yearly mass swim around the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Q 23Taiwan's indigenous peoples are the originators of which language family, spread across the Pacific?
Austronesian
Austronesian languages, from Malagasy to Hawaiian, trace back to Taiwan under the 'Out of Taiwan' model; the island's indigenous Formosan languages are the family's most diverse branch.
Q 14Taiwan's government is divided into how many branches, or Yuan?
Five
Five branches, or Yuan, share power: Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Examination and Control, following Sun Yat-sen's five-power constitution.
Q 15What did the Japanese call Taiwan's highest peak, a name later used in the coded order to attack Pearl Harbor?
Mount Niitaka
Mount Niitaka, 'new high mountain', was so named because Yushan out-tops Mount Fuji; 'Climb Mount Niitaka' was the signal launching the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941.
Q 16By Yushan's height, where does Taiwan rank among the world's highest islands?
Fourth
Fourth is the rank: only New Guinea, Hawaii's Big Island and Borneo rise higher than Yushan's 3,952 metres.
Q 17Which line of latitude passes through Taiwan?
The Tropic of Cancer
The Tropic of Cancer crosses Taiwan near Chiayi in the west and Ruisui in Hualien County in the east, both marked by monuments.
Q 18The '921 earthquake' that killed more than 2,400 people struck on 21 September of which year?
1999
1999's Jiji (Chi-Chi) earthquake, magnitude 7.6, struck at 1:47 a.m. on 21 September along the Chelungpu Fault in central Taiwan, killing about 2,400 people.
Q 19Taipei 101 was the world's tallest building from 2004 until overtaken by which tower?
Burj Khalifa
Burj Khalifa in Dubai, opened in January 2010 at 828 metres, ended Taipei 101's reign; the Taipei tower's Toshiba lifts reached the 89th floor in 37 seconds.
Q 20How tall is Taipei 101?
508 metres
508 metres is the height to the spire, 101 floors up; in 2011 the tower became the world's tallest building with LEED Platinum certification.
Q 24Which ethnic group, native speakers of Taiwanese, makes up about 70% of the population?
Hoklo
Hoklo people, descended from Fujian migrants, make up about 70 percent; the Hakka are roughly 15 percent and the post-1945 mainland migrants and their descendants about 12 percent.
Q 25Which chipmaker, founded in 1987 by Morris Chang, was the world's first dedicated semiconductor foundry?
TSMC
TSMC pioneered the pure-play foundry model, making chips designed by others; Morris Chang founded it with backing from the ROC government and Philips.
Q 26In which science park is TSMC headquartered?
Hsinchu
Hsinchu Science Park, opened in 1980 and modelled on Silicon Valley, hosts the chipmaker's headquarters and its sister foundry UMC, an hour southwest of Taipei.
Q 27Along with Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, Taiwan's rapid growth earned it membership of which group?
Four Asian Tigers
Four Asian Tigers is the label for Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, whose export-led boom from the 1960s is known in Taiwan's case as the 'Taiwan Miracle'.
Q 28Which two Taiwanese companies are best known as personal computer makers?
Acer and Asus
Acer and Asus, both Taipei-founded, grew into two of the world's largest PC brands; Foxconn, by contrast, assembles iPhones as a contract manufacturer.
Q 29Bubble tea originated in Taiwan in which decade?
The 1980s
The 1980s produced bubble tea in Taichung and Tainan tea shops, with Chun Shui Tang and Hanlin Tea Room both claiming the invention; the chewy pearls are tapioca, a cassava starch.
Q 30Taiwan's famous red-braised beef noodle soup was first created by veterans from which Chinese province?
Sichuan
Sichuan veterans of the Nationalist army are credited with the red-braised version, built on their home province's spicy doubanjiang bean paste, after 1949.