Penghu County 澎湖縣 Abbreviation(s): Penghu (澎湖)
County seat	Magong City
Largest City	Makung
Region	Taiwan Strait
County Magistrate	Chien-fa Wang (王乾發)
Cities	1
Townships	5
Area
- Total	141.052 km² (22 of 25)
- % water	0 %
Population
- Total	93,446 (January 2009) (23 of 25)
- Density	662.49/km²
Symbols
- County flower	Firewheel (Gaillardia pulchella)
- County tree	Chinese Banyan (Ficus microcarpa)
- County bird	Small Skylark (Alauda gulgula)
Official websites	www.penghu.gov.tw

The Penghu Islands, also known as Pescadores (from Portuguese: "fishermen") are an archipelago off the western coast of Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait consisting of 64 small islands and islets covering an area of 141 square kilometers.

The whole archipelago forms Penghu County of Taiwan Province of the Republic of China.

History [edit]

Finds of fine red cord-marked pottery indicate that Penghu was visited by people from southwestern Taiwan around 5,000 years ago, though not settled permanently.^[1] Han Chinese from southern Fujian began to establish fishing communities on the islands in the 9th and 10th centuries,^[1] and representatives were intermittently stationed there by the Southern Song and Yuan governments from around 1170.^[2] The islands are described in some detail in Wang Dayuan's Dao Yi Zhi Lue (1349). In the 15th century, the Ming ordered the evacuation of the islands as part of their maritime ban. When these restrictions were removed in the late 16th century, fishing communities were re-established on the islands, so that passing Portuguese mariners named the islands the "Pescador" (fisherman) islands.^[2] The Ming established a military presence in 1603, repelling a Dutch attempt to establish a base on the islands in 1622.^[3] From the middle of the 17th century to 1895, Taiwan and the archipelago were ruled by the Koxinga kingdom (Tungning) and then the Qing Dynasty.

The Penghu archipelago was captured by the French in March 1885, in the closing weeks of the Sino-French War, and evacuated four months later. The Pescadores Campaign was the last campaign of Admiral Amédée Courbet, whose naval victories during the war had made him a national hero in France. Courbet was among several French soldiers and sailors who succumbed to cholera during the French occupation of Penghu. He died aboard his flagship Bayard in Makung harbour on 11 June 1885.^[4]

Defeated in northern China by the Japanese in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government ceded the islands to Japan along with Taiwan in the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Shimonoseki of April 1895. The Japanese suspected that they might meet resistance when they attempted to occupy Taiwan, and their invasion of Taiwan, hastily launched in late May 1895 in response to the proclamation of the Republic of Formosa, was preceded by an attack on Qing forces on Penghu in March 1895, in which the Japanese defeated the Chinese garrison of the islands and occupied Makung. The Japanese occupation of Penghu prevented more Chinese troops from being sent to Taiwan, persuaded the Chinese negotiators at Shimonoseki that Japan was determined to annex Taiwan, and helped to ensure the success of the subsequent Japanese invasion of Taiwan.^[5]

In the Second Sino-Japanese War, Mako (Makung) was a major base for the Imperial Japanese Navy and embarkation point for the invasion of the Philippines.

In the Cairo Declaration of 1943, the United States, United Kingdom, and China stated it to be their purpose that "all the territories that Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Formosa and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China." On 26 July 1945, the three governments issued the Potsdam Declaration, declaring that "the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out." In the Treaty of San Francisco, Japan renounced sovereignty over Taiwan and Penghu but left their final disposition unsettled. The archipelago has been administered by the Republic of China since that time.

In the early 1990s, the Penghu National Scenic Area that comprises most but not all of the islands and islets of the archipelago was created. Tourism has since become one of the main sources of income of the county.

On 25 May 2002, China Airlines Flight 611, a Boeing 747-200 aircraft flying from Taipei, Taiwan to Hong Kong disintegrated and exploded over the Islands. The wreckage slammed into the Taiwan Strait, a couple of miles off the coast. All 225 passengers and crew on board were killed.^[6]

Despite the controversy over the political status of Taiwan, both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China agree that Penghu is a county in (their own respective) "Taiwan Province" (Taiwan Province, Republic of China and Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China). However, geographically, the island of Taiwan does not include Penghu, although it is closer to Taiwan than mainland China. Thus, Penghu is listed separately from "Taiwan" in some contexts, e.g. the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu (the official WTO name for the Republic of China) in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Cairo Declaration, and the Treaty of San Francisco (see above).

Sub-county divisions [edit]

Subdivisions of Penghu County

Altogether, there are 97 villages.

The main islands of Magong City/Husi Township, Baisha Township, and Siyu Township are the three most populous islands and are connected via bridges. Two shorter bridges connect Husi and Baisha. The bridge connecting Baisha and Siyu is the longest bridge in the Republic of China and is called the Penghu Trans-Oceanic Bridge (澎湖跨海大橋 Peng Hu Kua Hai Da Qiao).

See also [edit]

	Republic of China portal
	Islands portal

This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

• Administrative divisions of the Republic of China
• List of cities in the Republic of China (Taiwan)
• Penghu National Scenic Area

References [edit]

Works cited

• Loir, Maurice (1886), L'escadre de l'amiral Courbet, Paris: Berger-Levrault. 
• Takekoshi, Yosaburo (1907), Japanese Rule in Formosa, London: Longmans. 
• Wills, John E., Jr. (2006), "The Seventeenth-century Transformation: Taiwan under the Dutch and the Cheng Regime", in Rubinstein, Murray A., Taiwan: A New History, M.E. Sharpe, pp. 84–106, ISBN 978-0-7656-1495-7. 

External links [edit]

Find more about Penghu at Wikipedia's sister projects
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks
	Travel information from Wikivoyage

• Penghu travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Penghu County Government Official Website
• Penghu Tour Official Website
• 澎湖研究學術研討會 第1-8屆論文輯全球資訊網-歷屆論文 (Traditional Chinese)
• Living Museum (Copyright © 2012 Culture Taiwan)

v t e Administrative divisions of Taiwan (Official state name as Republic of China) First-order Provinces (2) Taiwan Province Fujian Province Special municipalities (5) Kaohsiung New Taipei Taichung Tainan Taipei Second-order Taiwan Province Cities (3) Chiayi Hsinchu Keelung Counties (12) Changhua Chiayi Hsinchu Hualien Miaoli Nantou Penghu Pingtung Taitung Taoyuan Yilan Yunlin Fujian Province Counties (2) Kinmen Lienchiang See also: Free area of the Republic of China

v t e Administrative divisions of outlying islands of Taiwan Kaohsiung Cijin District (Pratas Islands and Taiping Island) Kinmen Jincheng Township Jinhu Township Jinsha Township Jinning Township Lieyu Township Wuqiu Township Lienchiang1 Beigan Township Dongyin Township Juguang Township Nangan Township Penghu Magong City Baisha Township Huxi Township Qimei Township Xiyu Township Wang'an Township Pingtung Liuqiu Township Taitung Lanyu Township Lüdao Township Yilan Toucheng Township (Guishan Island and Diaoyutai Islands2) 1 Lienchiang County commonly known as Matsu. 2Diaoyutai Islands are controlled by Japan, (called Senkaku Islands).

Coordinates: 23°35′N 119°35′E / 23.583°N 119.583°E / 23.583; 119.583