Taiwan
Taiwan the Republic of China, is a state in East Asia. Neighbouring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the northeast, the Philippines to the south. Taiwan is the most populous state and largest economy, not a member of the United Nations; the island of Taiwan was inhabited by indigenous peoples for thousands of years before the 17th century, when Dutch colonialists opened the island to mass Han immigration. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty of China, ceded to Japan in 1895. Following the surrender of Japan in 1945, the Republic of China, which had overthrown and succeeded the Qing in 1911, took control of Taiwan; the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the loss of the mainland to the Communists and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. Although the ROC government continued to claim to be the legitimate representative of China, since 1950 its effective jurisdiction has been limited to Taiwan and several small islands.
In the early 1960s, Taiwan entered a period of industrialisation. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it changed from a one-party military dictatorship to a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system; as a founding member, the ROC represented China in the UN until it was replaced by the PRC in 1971. The PRC has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and refused diplomatic relations with any country that recognises the ROC; as of 2019, Taiwan maintains official ties with 16 out of 193 UN member states. Most international organisations in which the PRC participates either refuse to grant membership to Taiwan or allow it to participate only as a non-state actor. Most major powers maintain unofficial ties with Taiwan through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates. In Taiwan, the major political division is between parties favouring eventual Chinese unification and promoting a Chinese identity contrasted with those aspiring to independence and promoting a Taiwanese identity, though both sides have moderated their positions to broaden their appeal.
Taiwan is a high-income advanced economy, with a skilled and educated workforce. It has the 22nd-largest economy in the world, its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy, it is urbanised, is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with most of the population concentrated on the western coast. The state is ranked in terms of civil and political liberties, health care and human development. Various names for the island of Taiwan remain in use today, each derived from explorers or rulers during a particular historical period; the name Formosa dates from 1542, when Portuguese sailors sighted an uncharted island and noted it on their maps as Ilha Formosa. The name Formosa "replaced all others in European literature" and remained in common use among English speakers into the 20th century. In the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a commercial post at Fort Zeelandia on a coastal sandbar called "Tayouan", after their ethnonym for a nearby Taiwanese aboriginal tribe Taivoan people, written by the Dutch and Portuguese variously as Taiouwang, Teijoan, etc.
This name was adopted into the Chinese vernacular as the name of the sandbar and nearby area. The modern word "Taiwan" is derived from this usage, seen in various forms in Chinese historical records; the area occupied by modern-day Tainan represented the first permanent settlement by both European colonists and Chinese immigrants. The settlement grew to be the island's most important trading centre and served as its capital until 1887. Use of the current Chinese name became official as early as 1684 with the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture. Through its rapid development the entire Formosan mainland became known as "Taiwan". In his Daoyi Zhilüe, Wang Dayuan used "Liuqiu" as a name for the island of Taiwan, or the part of it closest to Penghu. Elsewhere, the name was used for the Ryukyu Islands in general or Okinawa, the largest of them; the name appears in the Book of Sui and other early works, but scholars cannot agree on whether these references are to the Ryukyus, Taiwan or Luzon. The official name of the state is the "Republic of China".
Shortly after the ROC's establishment in 1912, while it was still located on the Chinese mainland, the government used the short form "China" to refer to itself, which derives from zhōng and guó, a term which developed under the Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne, the name was applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and to China's Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state during the Qing era. During the 1950s and 1960s, after the government had withdrawn to Taiwan upon losing the Chinese Civil War, it was referred to as "Nationalist China" to differentiate it from "Communist China", it was a member of the United Nations representing "China" until 1971, when it lost its seat to the People's Republic of China. Over subsequent decades, the Republic of China has become known as "Taiwan", after the island that comprises 99% of the territory under its control. In some contexts ROC government publications, the name is written as "
Vitiaz Strait
Vitiaz Strait is a strait between New Britain and the Huon Peninsula, northern New Guinea. The Vitiaz Strait was so named by Nicholai Nicholaievich Mikluho-Maklai to commemorate the Russian corvette Vitiaz in which he sailed from October 1870 by way of South America and the Pacific Islands reaching Astrolabe Bay in September 1871; the 1200 m deep Vitiaz Strait "was a focus of attention by Australian and USA oceanographers on voyages in 1985, 1986, 1988, 1991 and 1992 as part of the Western Equatorial Pacific Ocean Circulation Study, WEPOCS". The New Guinea Coastal Undercurrent transports "high-salinity, low-tritium, high-oxygen, low-nutrient water from the Solomon Sea northwestward along the north coast of Papua New Guinea through the Vitiaz Strait". However, the surface layer current running through the strait, the New Guinea Coastal Current, experiences a seasonal reversal. In boreal summer characterized by the south-easterly monsoon, the westward current dominates. Abel Tasman sighted Umboi Island in the Vitiaz Strait in 1643 but failed to realise that the Strait separated the island from the coast of New Guinea.
William Dampier charted the passage now named Dampier Strait between Umboi Island and New Britain in 1700 Dampier had established that the land mass he named New Britain was an island. As he sailed northwesterly through the passage, Dampier charted and named various islands which lay between the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits: Sir George Rook's Island, Long Island and Crown Island. During the New Guinea Campaign, control of the Vitiaz Strait took on strategic military importance; the Japanese landed two battalions at Lae and Salamaua on the Huon Gulf on 8 March 1942 giving them control of the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits. Japanese forces lost control of the Vitiaz and Dampier Straits after the capture of Finschhafen by Australian troops and the landing of American forces on New Britain. General Douglas MacArthur announced that Rooke Island had been occupied on Saturday 12 February 1944 by American forces who met no opposition. Allied control was made secure by landings in the Admiralty Islands on 29 February 1944
Rabaul caldera
The Rabaul caldera, or Rabaul Volcano, is a large volcano on the tip of the Gazelle Peninsula in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, derives its name from the town of Rabaul inside the caldera. The caldera has many sub-vents, Tavurvur being the most well known for its devastating eruptions over Rabaul; the outer flanks of the highest peak, a 688-metre-high asymmetrical pyroclastic shield, are formed by thick pyroclastic flow deposits. There is no sign of a pyroclastic shield along the rim of the caldera, making the location underwater, on the caldera's floor. Tavurvur, a stratovolcano and a sub-vent of the caldera, is the most visibly active, continuously throwing ash. In 1994 it, nearby Vulcan and devastated Rabaul. One of the deaths was caused by a feature of volcanic ash clouds. In 1937, Vulcan and Tavurvur erupted killing 507 people; this event led to the founding of the Rabaul Volcano Observatory, which watches over the many active volcanoes on Papua New Guinea. One eruption over several days in March 2008 released a plume of ash and water vapor that drifted northwest over the Bismarck Sea.
Stratovolcanoes Tavurvur - 223 meters 4.239°S 152.21°E / -4.239. But it is not certain, as there are other possible culprits, including Ilopango in El Salvador in Central America.683 AD ± 2 years: There was a VEI force 6 eruption at Rabaul, proved by corrected radiocarbon. For more information, see Rabaul#Rabaul volcano: 1937 eruption.1950s: A government vulcanological observatory was established on the northern ridge of Rabaul caldera.19 September 1994: Tavurvur and Vulcan erupted, destroying Rabaul airport and covering most of Rabaul town with heavy ashfall. Vulcan has remained quiet since. For more information see Rabaul#1994 eruption.1994 to 1995: Last eruptions of Vulcan.7 October 2006: Tavurvur erupted again, an initial blast broke windows up to 12 kilometers away and sent an ash plume 18 km into the stratosphere. Winds blew most of the ash away from Rabaul.2009: An eruption of Tavurvur was filmed by a BBC crew for the three-part nature documentary series Lost Land of the Volcano produced by the BBC Natural History Unit.
The programme looked at the wildlife living around the volcano and in its ash field, including brahminy kites, rhinoceros beetles, megapode birds and land crabs.1 January to 8 April 2010: Tavurvur was quiet. 23 July 2010: Eruptions at Tavurvur volcano resumed after nearly seven months without ash emissions.2–8 April 2010: Seismicity was low and variable amounts of white vapor rose from Tavurvur cone.9 April 2010: The Rabaul Volcano Observatory reported that deformation measurements at Rabaul caldera during the previous 3–4 months had shown an inflationary trend with a total of 4 cm of uplift.22 July 2010: RVO detected increased seismicity, as a few small hybrid earthquakes, followed by small low-frequency earthquakes continuous volcanic tremor starting at time 1034.23 July 2010: Tavurvur cone erupted, starting at time 1300. The eruption began with discharge of diffuse white plumes, followed by pink-gray fumes with low ash content. A strong odor of hydrogen sulfide was noted, a diffuse cloud rose 1 km and drifted NW.
A few hours observers saw billowing gray clouds, accompanied by roaring and rumbling noises. Ashfall was reported in areas to the cone's NW and NNW.23–26 July 2010: RVO reported that seismicity was variable. Ash emissions and ashfall continued in areas to the northwest. Visibility remained. Ash emissions ceased on 25 July; that day and into 26 July only diffuse brown-tinted vapor plumes were emitted and seismicity was low. After this eruption, GPS data showed deflation of Tavurvur cone. Seismicity was low, diffuse white plumes were emitted during 26–30 July. January 2013: Tavurvur began to smolder. March 2014: Tavurvur became quiet. August 2014: Tavurvur woke and smoldered.29 August 2014: Tavurvur started a VEI 3 eruption, around 3:30–4:00 AM local time prompting concerns over disruption of flights in Australian airspace due to the large ash clouds. Communities near the volcano were evacuated, while residents of the town of Rabaul were advised to remain indoors to avoid falling ash, according to a statement from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The VEI of this eruption was 3^4. Eruption history of Rabaul
German New Guinea
German New Guinea consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, became a German protectorate in 1884. Other island groups were added subsequently. New Pomerania, the Bismarck Archipelago, the northern Solomon Islands were declared a German protectorate in 1885. Following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and nearby islands fell to Australian forces, while Japan occupied most of the remaining German possessions in the Pacific; the mainland part of German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the North Solomon Islands are now part of Papua New Guinea. The Micronesian islands of German New Guinea are now governed as the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands. Nauru, the Northern Mariana Islands and Palau are independent countries; the islands to the east of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, on annexation, were renamed the Bismarck Archipelago and the two largest islands renamed Neu-Pommern and Neu-Mecklenburg.
Due to their accessibility by water, these outlying islands were, have remained, the most economically viable part of the territory. With the exception of German Samoa, the German islands in the Western Pacific formed the "Imperial German Pacific Protectorates"; these were administered as part of German New Guinea and included the German Solomon Islands, the Carolines, the Marianas, the Marshall Islands, Nauru. The total land area of German New Guinea was 249,500 square kilometres; the first Germans in the South Pacific were sailors on the crew of ships of the Dutch East India Company: during Abel Tasman's first voyage, the captain of the Heemskerck was one Holleman, born in Jever in northwest Germany. Hanseatic League merchant houses were the first to establish footholds in the South Pacific: Johann Cesar Godeffroy & Sohn of Hamburg, headquartered at Samoa from 1857, operated a South Seas network of trading stations dominating the copra trade and carrying German immigrants to various South Pacific settlements.
By the end of 1875, one German trader reported: "German trade and German ships are encountered everywhere at the exclusion of any other nation". In the late 1870s and early 1880s, an active minority, stemming from a right-wing National Liberal and Free Conservative background, had organised various colonial societies all over Germany to persuade Chancellor Bismarck to embark on a colonial policy; the most important ones were the Kolonialverein of 1882 and the Society for German Colonization founded in 1884. The reasons for Bismarck's lack of enthusiasm when it came to the subject of Germany's colonial possessions is reflected in his curt response in 1888 to the procolonial, expansionist remarks of Eugen Wolf, reflected in the latter's autobiography. After Bismarck had patiently listened to Wolf enthusiastically laying out his plans that he sought to pitch employing several illustrative maps, Bismarck interrupted his monologue: Your map of Africa there is nice I have to admit, but you know, my map of Africa is here... in Europe.
You see. And us, we are here – right in the middle between those two. That's my map of Africa. Despite his personal objections, it was Bismarck himself who organised the acquisition of much of what would become the German colonial empire; the first attempts at the new policy came in 1884 when Bismarck had to put German trading interests in southwestern Africa under imperial protection. Bismarck told the Reichstag on 23 June 1884 of the change in German colonial policy: annexations would now proceed but by grants of charters to private companies; the edition of 27 November 1882 of the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung carried an article which the Colonial Secretary of the British colony of New South Wales drew to the attention of the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and, on 7 February 1883, the paper published a summary of the article under the heading German annexation of New Guinea. The argument lifted from the German paper began by stating that New Guinea fell into the Australian sphere but had been neglected.
Recent explorations had given the basis for reconsideration: it "is considered useful by geology and biology people as holding in its forests the key to solve problems... a profitable field for cultivation" but London had only sent missionaries to save souls. "As we Germans have learnt a little about conducting colonial policy, as our wishes and plans turn with a certain vivacity towards New Guinea... according to our opinion it might be possible to create out of the island a German Java, a great trade and plantation colony, which would form a stately foundatio
Austronesian peoples
The Austronesian peoples or more Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a group of various peoples in Southeast Asia and East Africa that speak Austronesian languages. The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are known collectively as Austronesia, they include Taiwanese aborigines, the majority of ethnic groups in Brunei, East Timor, Madagascar, Micronesia, the Philippines and Polynesia, as well as the Malays of Singapore. They are found in the regions of Southern Thailand, the Cham areas in Vietnam and Cambodia, parts of Myanmar, the Hainan island province of China, parts of Sri Lanka and some of the Andaman Islands. Additionally, modern-era migration brought Austronesian-speaking people to the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, mainland Europe, Cocos Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Hainan, Hong Kong and West Asian countries. Ethnic Maldivians possess a genetic connection to the Austronesian-speaking groups of maritime Southeast Asia via gene flow from the Malay Archipelago.
Another term used by Wilhelm G. Solheim II to refer to Austronesian-speakers with a maritime-oriented culture is Nusantao, as part of his Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network hypothesis; the linguistic connections between Madagascar and Southeast Asia were recognized early in the Colonial Era by European authors the remarkable similarities between Malagasy and Polynesian numerals. The first formal publications on these relationships was in 1708 by the Dutch Orientalist Adriaan Reland, who recognized a "common language" from Madagascar to western Polynesia; the Spanish philologist Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro devoted a large part of his Idea dell' Universo to the establishment of a language family linking the Malaysian Peninsula, the Maldives, the Sunda Islands, the Philippines, the Pacific Islands eastward to Easter Island. Multiple other authors corroborated this classification, the language family came to be known as "Malayo-Polynesian," first coined by the German linguist Franz Bopp in 1841.
The term "Malayo-Polynesian" was first used in English by the British ethnologist James Cowles Prichard in 1842 to refer to a historical racial category equivalent to the Austronesian peoples today, not to the language family. However, the Malayo-Polynesian language family excluded Melanesia and Micronesia, due to what they perceived were marked physical differences between the inhabitants of these regions from the Malayo-Polynesian speakers. However, there was growing evidence of their linguistic relationship to Malayo-Polynesian languages, notably from studies on the Melanesian languages by Georg von der Gabelentz, Robert Henry Codrington and Sidney Herbert Ray. Codrington coined and used the term "Ocean" language family rather than "Malayo-Polynesian" in 1891, in opposition to the exclusion of Melanesian and Micronesian languages; this was adopted by Ray who defined the "Oceanic" language family as encompassing the languages of Southeast Asia and Madagascar, Micronesia and Polynesia. In 1899, the Austrian linguist and ethnologist Wilhelm Schmidt coined the term "Austronesian" to refer to the language family.
Schmidt had the same motivations as Cordington. He proposed the term as a replacement to "Malayo-Polynesian", because he opposed the implied exclusion of the languages of Melanesia and Micronesia in the latter name, it became the accepted name for the language family, with Oceanic and Malayo-Polynesian languages being retained as names for subgroups. The term "Austronesian", or more "Austronesian-speaking peoples", came to refer the people who speak the languages of the Austronesian language family; some authors, object to the use of the term to refer to people, as they question whether there is any biological or cultural shared ancestry between all Austronesian-speaking groups. This is true for authors who reject the prevailing "Out of Taiwan" hypothesis and instead offer scenarios where the Austronesian languages spread among preexisting static populations through borrowing or convergence, with little or no population movements. Despite these objections, the general consensus is that the archeological, cultural and linguistic evidence all separately indicate varying degrees of shared ancestry among Austronesian-speaking peoples that justifies their treatment as a "phylogenetic unit."
This has led to the use of the term "Austronesian" in academic literature to refer not only to the Austronesian languages, but the Austronesian-speaking peoples, their societies, the geographic area of Austronesia. Serious research into the Austronesian languages and its speakers has been ongoing since the 19th century. Modern scholarship on Austronesian dispersion models is credited to two influential papers in the late 20th century: The Colonisation of the Pacific: A Genetic Trail, The Austronesian Dispersal and the Oigin of Languages; the topic is interesting to scientists for the remarkably unique characteristics of the Austronesian speakers: their extent and rapid dispersal. Regardless certain d
New Ireland (island)
New Ireland or Latangai, is a large island in Papua New Guinea 7,404 km2 in area with ca. 120,000 people. It is the largest island of lying northeast of the island of New Britain. Both islands are part of the Bismarck Archipelago, named after Otto von Bismarck, they are separated by Saint George's Channel; the administrative centre of the island and of New Ireland province is the town of Kavieng located at the northern end of the island. While the island was part of German New Guinea, it was named Neumecklenburg; the island is part of the Bismarck Archipelago and is described as having the shape of a musket. For much of its 360 km in length, the island's width varies between less than 10 km to 40 km, yet the central mountainous spine is steep and rugged; the highest peak is Mount Taron in the Hans Meyer Range. Other mountain ranges are Tirpitz, Schleinitz and Rossel; the island lies between five degrees south of the equator. The original land cover was dense rainforest. New Ireland is surrounded by the Bismarck Sea in the southwest and by the Pacific Ocean in the northeast.
The first inhabitants of the Bismarck Archipelago arrived around 33,000 years ago after sailing from what is now Papua New Guinea. Arrivals included the Lapita people 3,000 years ago. Three distinct cultural practices are characteristic of the native people of New Ireland: Kabai and Tumbuan. In 1616 the Dutch sailors Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten were the first Europeans to set foot on the island. Louis Antoine de Bougainville anchored here on 6 July 1768, eleven months after Philip Carteret. Whaling ships called at the island in the 19th century, for water and provisions; the first recorded was by the Resource in 1799. Islanders sometimes served as crewmen on these vessels; the last known whaling visitor was the Belvedere in 1884. In the 1870s and 1880s, the Marquis de Rays, a French nobleman, attempted to establish a French colony on the island called New France, he sent four ill-fated expeditions to the island, the most famous of which caused the death of 123 settlers. From 1885 to 1914 New Ireland bore the name Neumecklenburg.
Germans managed several profitable copra plantations and built a road to transport the goods. This road is in service and is named the Boluminski Highway after the German administrator of German New Guinea, Franz Boluminski. After World War I New Ireland was ceded to Australia. Australia renamed the island New Ireland, after the island of Ireland. In January 1942, during World War II, the island was captured by Japanese forces and was under their control. Widespread deforestation and degradation of lowland rainforest is an issue on New Ireland and the other eastern islands of Papua New Guinea as well as on Papua New Guinea mainland. Nearly 60% of their forests are accessible to logging, by 2002, 63% of the accessible forests had been deforested or degraded. Malagan – funerary arts that originate in Tabar Group, have been imported to the northern region of New Ireland. Tatanua – "The person who organises a tatanua performance must select the music and dancers, assemble a male chorus and acquire the masks.
The masks are rented from one of the sculptors who makes them." Kulap – chalk limestone funerary sculptures. Entry at the Linköping University "New Britain-New Ireland lowland rain forests". Terrestrial Ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund. Persée: Archaeological survey in southern New Ireland Wallaby extinctions at the Macropodid frontier "New Mecklenburg". New International Encyclopedia. 1905
Kokopo
Kokopo is the capital of East New Britain in Papua New Guinea. The capital was moved from Rabaul in 1994 when the volcanoes Vulcan erupted; as a result, the population of the town increased more than sixfold from 3,150 in 1990 to 20,262 in 2000. Kokopo was known as Herbertshöhe during the German New Guinea administration which controlled the area between 1884 and formally until 1919; until 1910 it was the capital of German New Guinea. On Sunday, March 29, 2015, a strong earthquake, of a preliminary magnitude of at least 7.5, which if confirmed would be the largest earthquake in the world up to that point for 2015, was recorded near Kokopo, a tsunami warning was issued. This was surpassed a month by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake, which measured a magnitude 7.8. A research and conservation project has been suggested to study and protect spinner dolphins living around Kokopo beach, as this population may be threatened if constructions of new port for larger shipping lanes is conducted; the remains of the former capital Rabaul are located some 20 km to the north-east of Kokopo, when using the Kokopo-Rabaul Highway.
There are around 4,000 inhabitants in Rabaul, down from over 17,000 before the latest volcanic eruption. Rabaul Airport, one of Papua New Guinea's largest domestic airports, is located a few kilometres east of Kokopo; the Papua New Guinea Hunters are a rugby league football club based in Kokopo. They were established in 2013 and compete in the QRL's Intrust Super Cup; the Hunters' home ground is Kalabond Oval in Kokopo and their team colours are red and gold
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