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
Flag of the Republic of China PRC's position that the ROC is a defunct entity and that the ROC on Taiwan is illegitimate. The ban also effectively applies to spectators—during a Table Tennis final match at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, police arrested a Taiwanese student for waving the ROC flag. However, the symbolism of the flag began to shift in the early 21st century as there was a warming of relations between the pan-Blue coalition in Taiwan and the Communist Party of China on mainland China. The flag of the Republic of China has begun to symbolize the existence of a past and possibly future unified