Taiwan and larger than Belgium. The island of Taiwan has an area of , and lies some from the southeastern coast of mainland China across the Taiwan Strait. The East China Sea lies to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait directly to the south, and the South China Sea to the southwest. Its shape is similar to a sweet potato, giving rise to the slang term "hanji" ("sweet potato" in Hokkien) used by Taiwanese Hokkien speakers to refer to people of native Taiwanese descent. The island is characterized by the contrast between
Mainland China area occupied by PRC as "mainland", since it is officially considered still part of the ROC territory but just enemy occupied. In contrast, the pro-Taiwan independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) prefer to use the term "China" instead, referring to the PRC, to imply that Taiwan (ROC) is separate from China. Related to this naming and broader national identity issue, the DPP would also like to amend the ROC constitution to limit its scope and territorial description to the Free area of the Republic of China only and rectify the ROC country name to "Republic of Taiwan" instead, thereby eliminating the