Geography of Taiwan Geography of Taiwan Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, is an island in East Asia; located some off the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait. It has an area of , which includes other nearby islands such as Penghu (). 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. The island makes up 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China, which is also known as "Taiwan". Taiwan is a tilted fault block, characterized by the
Mainland China "the land of the utopian past [and] childhood". Schoolchildren were taught slogans like "Counterattack the mainland!" () and "Save our mainland compatriots from the deepest water and hottest fire!" (). The Taiwanese were also told that they were the guardians of traditional Chinese culture until political reunification. However, democratization on Taiwan has led to the rise of voices which denounced traditional attitudes towards the mainland and the ancestral home system, pressing for Taiwanization, Desinicization, and "Taiwan cultural independence" (). Concurrently, the mainland Chinese economic reform changed the connotation of "mainland China" to one of "primitiveness, nativeness, and raw cultural material