Geography of Taiwan water supplies, and trade in endangered species. Though regulation of sulfate aerosol emissions from petroleum combustion is becoming stringent, acid rain remains a threat to the health of residents and forests. Atmospheric scientists in Taiwan estimate that more than half of the pollutants causing Taiwan's acid rain are carried from mainland China by monsoon winds. 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
Mainland China people often call the area of non-coastal provinces in of Mainland China as "Inland" (). In Taiwan, certain people, the Kuomintang (KMT, "Chinese Nationalist Party") and its supporters use the term "mainland" is to refer to the territory of the PRC (Hong Kong and Macau excluded). This accords with the KMT position that "China" encompasses both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Since the KMT was the ruling party in Taiwan until 2000 and the only party allowed until the late 1980s, and had set up the educational system and taught children the term since its takeover in 1945, the term