Bank of Taiwan

The Bank of Taiwan (BOT, Chinese: 臺灣銀行; pinyin: Táiwān Yínháng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-oân gîn-hâng, see below) is a bank headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. It is administered and owned by the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China (Taiwan).

History

The Bank of Taiwan was established as Taiwan's central bank in 1899 by Taiwan's Japanese government. The bank's creation was authorized in 1897 by the Bank Act of Taiwan which encouraged Japanese enterprises, such as the Mitsubishi and Mitsui Groups, to invest in Taiwan. Extensive cooperation ensued between the Nippon Kangyo Bank and the Bank of Taiwan. A financial crisis facing these banks in 1927 was relieved with assistance from the Bank of Japan. Bank branches were created in other parts of Asia as the empire expanded, including areas in China and Southeast Asia.

After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the ROC government took over the Bank of Taiwan and began issuing Taiwan dollars, also known as Taiwan Nationalist Yuan, through the Bank of Taiwan. This currency is now referred to as the "old Taiwan dollar." Severe inflation of this currency during the Chinese Civil War led the Bank of Taiwan to issue the New Taiwan Dollar in 1949. After the loss of mainland China in the Chinese Civil War by the Kuomintang and its subsequent retreat to Taiwan, the Bank of Taiwan took on a more central role as the central bank of the ROC until the Central Bank of China was reestablished in 1961. The Bank of Taiwan was governed under the Taiwan Provincial Government until 1998 when governance was transferred to the ROC Finance Ministry. In 2001 the Central Bank of China took over the task of issuing the New Taiwan Dollar.

Bank of Taiwan (basketball)

Bank of Taiwan is a basketball team in the Super Basketball League in Taiwan. This team was established in 1973 by the official Bank of Taiwan, and later joined the SBL in 2003.

SBL regular season records

Notable players

Rod Benson

Chen Shun-Hsiang

Douglas Creighton

Jung-Hsuan Chang

Jason Faulknor

References

Taiwan

Coordinates: 23°30′N 121°00′E / 23.500°N 121.000°E / 23.500; 121.000

Taiwan (ⁱ/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a sovereign state in East Asia. The Republic of China, originally based in mainland China, now governs the island of Taiwan, which constitutes more than 99% of its territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands, following its loss of the mainland China territory in 1949 in the Chinese Civil War. This remaining area is also constitutionally called the "Free area of the Republic of China" which is not ruled by the Communist Party of China in Beijing.

Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west (mainland China), Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with a population density of 649 people per km² in October 2015.Taipei is the seat of the central government, and together with the surrounding cities of New Taipei and Keelung forms the largest metropolitan area on the island.

Taiwan Province

Taiwan Province (Chinese: 臺灣省 or 台灣省; pinyin: Táiwān Shěng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tâi-oân Séng) is one of the two administrative divisions of the Republic of China (ROC) that are officially referred to as "provinces". The province covers approximately 69% of the actual-controlled territory of the ROC, with around 31% of the total population.

Geographically it covers the majority of the island of Taiwan as well as almost all of its surrounding islands, the largest of which are the Penghu archipelago, Green Island, Xiaoliuqiu Island and Orchid Island. Taiwan Province does not cover territories of the special municipalities of Kaohsiung, New Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Taipei, and Taoyuan, all of which are located geographically within the main island of Taiwan. It also does not include the counties of Kinmen and Lienchiang, which are located alongside the southeast coast of mainland China and administered as a separate Fujian Province (not to be confused with the PRC's Fujian Province).

Geography of Taiwan

Taiwan (historically called Formosa, from Portuguese: Ilha Formosa, "Beautiful Island", Portuguese pronunciation: [ˌiʎɐ fuɾˈmɔzɐ]) is an island in East Asia; it is located some 180 kilometres (112 miles) off the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait. It has an area of 35,883 km² (13,855 sq mi) and spans the Tropic of Cancer. The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait directly to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest. Taiwan proper makes up 99% of the territory of the Free Area of Republic of China, after the ROC lost its mainland China territory in the Chinese Civil War and fled to the island in 1949, and the country itself is commonly referred to as simply "Taiwan".

Taiwan is a tilted fault block, characterized by the contrast between the eastern two-thirds, consisting mostly of five rugged mountain ranges parallel to the east coast, and the flat to gently rolling plains of the western third, where most of Taiwan's population reside. There are several peaks over 3,500 m, the highest being Yu Shan at 3,952 metres (12,966 ft), making Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island. The tectonic boundary that formed these ranges is still active, and the island experiences many earthquakes, a few of them highly destructive. There are also many active submarine volcanoes in the Taiwan Straits.