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Taiwanese people are the citizens and nationals of the Republic of China (ROC) and those who reside in an overseas diaspora from the entire Taiwan Area. The term also refers to natives or inhabitants of the island of Taiwan and its associated islands who may speak Sinitic languages (Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka Chinese) or the indigenous Taiwanese languages as a mother tongue but share a common culture and national identity. After the retreat of the Republic of China government to Taiwan in 1949, the actual-controlled territories of the government were limited to the main island of Taiwan and Penghu, whose administration were transferred from Japan in 1945, along with a few outlying islands in Fuchien Province which include Kinmen and Matsu Islands.
Taiwanese people as a demonym may broadly refer to the indigenous peoples of Kinmen and Matsu islands as they share the same national identity with people of Taiwan. However, the islanders of Kinmen and the Matsu may not consider the "Taiwanese" label to be accurate as these two islands are legally parts of Fujian and not Taiwan. They maintain distinctive cultural identities from that of the Taiwanese, and prefer to be called "Kinmenese" and "Matsunese", respectively.
At least three competing (and occasionally overlapping) paradigms are used to identify someone as a Taiwanese person: nationalist criteria, self-concept (including the concept of "") criteria and socio-cultural criteria. These standards are fluid and result from evolving social and political issues. The complexity resulting from competing and evolving standards is compounded by a larger dispute regarding Taiwan's identity, the political status of Taiwan and its potential de jure Taiwan independence or Cross-Strait Unification.
According to government figures, over 95% of Taiwan's population of 23.4 million consists of Han Taiwanese, while 2.3% are Austronesian Taiwanese indigenous peoples. The Han are often divided into three subgroups: the Hoklo people, the Hakka people, and waishengren (or "mainlanders"). The largest overseas diaspora of Taiwanese people are Taiwanese Americans in the United States.
Despite the wide use of the "four great ethnic groups" in public discourse as essentialized identities, the relationships between the peoples of Taiwan have been in a constant state of convergence and negotiation for centuries. According to Harrel and Huang, the distinction between non-aboriginal Taiwanese groups are "no longer definitive in cultural terms".
The KMT lost the Chinese Civil War and retreated to Taiwan in 1949. However, Chiang Kai-shek intended to eventually return to mainland China and retake control of it. In order to do this, the KMT attempted to "sinicize" the Taiwanese people. "In order to shore up his government's legitimacy, Chiang set about turning Taiwan's inhabitants into Chinese. To use Renan's terminology, Chiang chose to re-define the concept of shared destiny to include the mainland. Streets were renamed; major thoroughfares in Taipei received names associated with the traditional Confucian virtues. The avenue passing in front of the foreign ministry en route to the presidential palace was named chieh-shou (long life), in Chiang's honor. Students were required to learn Mandarin and speak it exclusively; those who disobeyed and spoke Taiwanese, Hakka, or aboriginal tongues could be fined, slapped, or subjected to other disciplinary actions." KMT's Taiwan Garrison Commander Chen Yi stated that after 50 years of Japanese rule, "Taiwanese customs, thought, and language would have to gradually return to that of the Chinese people". The KMT believed that a centrally controlled curriculum would forge a unified national sentiment in Taiwan. They also believed education would help build a martial spirit and stimulate enough military, economic, political, and cultural strength not only to survive, but also to recover the mainland.
Under the KMT structure, "Taiwanese" became a strong "regional" identity. The term has often been used synonymously with "benshengren", a term which covered both Hokkien and Hakka whose ancestors arrived in Taiwan before the Japanese restrictions on immigration in 1895. "Taiwanese" was used in contrast with waishengren (mainlanders), who included the people who followed the KMT to Taiwan between 1945 and 1949 and their descendants. The government tended to stress provincial identities, with identification cards and passports issued until the late 1990s displaying one's ancestral province and county. During this period the terms "cooked" and "raw" Indigenous disappeared. The former "raw" Indigenous were termed Shandi Tongbao, Gaoshanzu (Mountain Race) or Gaoshan Tongbao (Mountain Compatriots).
The campaign saw resonance with the people of Taiwan and the term "Taiwanese" has been used by politicians of all parties to refer to the electorate in an effort to secure votes. The concept of a separate Taiwanese identity has become such an integral factor to the election culture in Taiwan, that identifying as a Taiwanese has become essential to being elected in Taiwan . These political reforms have since been credited with the renewal of interest in Taiwanese history, culture, and identity.
After the lifting of martial law in 1987, the Hoklo people, the largest ethnic group in Taiwan, were allowed to articulate their own interests and the idea emerged that Taiwan should be built primarily as a Hoklo nation based on Hoklo identity and culture. They advocated for the replacement of Mandarin Chinese, removal of geography lessons focused on the Yellow River and the Great Wall of China, historical focus on the Second Sino-Japanese War, and Beijing Opera as representative of culture. This was opposed by other ethnic groups such as the Hakka people and Taiwanese indigenous peoples who fought against using Hokkien as the national language and narratives of Han colonization of Taiwan. As a result, the Hoklo became more supportive of a multicultural policy that focused on equality of languages and ethnicty. However others were skeptical and said that the Hoklo do not have a strong ethnic identity since they define themselves and their language as primarily Taiwanese. The Hakka and indigenous peoples of Taiwan have also been redefined as "Taiwanese" in the following period. There have been criticisms of this movement as politically motivated. Authors such as Shih Chih-yu and Yih-jye Hwang described Taiwan's multiculturalism as a discursive construction of identity and that Taiwan identity only existed in discourse without a fixed, essential, or permanent state. There were strong political inclinations underlying both Taiwanese identity as well as pan-Chinese (Han) identity. They criticized the indigenous wing of the KMT for arguing that the Taiwanese were not Chinese and that pro-independence leaders were trying to generate a Taiwanese national consciousness through deliberately redrawing ethnic boundaries and rewriting histories. The division of Hoklo, Hakka and Mainlanders, originally introduced by the Hoklo, has gained popular support within Taiwanese society.
From 2014 to 2018 and 2020 to 2022, the number of those identifying solely as "Taiwanese" declined. Researchers analysing this phenomenon found that the performance of the ruling political party influenced the way people identified. The study found that when the Democratic Progressive Party was believed to have governed well, the number of people identifying solely as "Taiwanese" increased, and when the Kuomintang was believed to have governed well, the number of people expressing affiliation to a "Chinese and Taiwanese" identity increased.
In a 2002 poll by the Democratic Progressive Party, over 50% of the respondents considered themselves "Taiwanese" only, up from less than 20% in 1991 . Polls conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in 2001 found that 70% of Taiwanese would support a name change of the country to Taiwan if the island could no longer be referred to as the Republic of China.
The discrepancy in identity becomes larger when polls only give the two options of "Taiwanese" versus "Chinese". In June 2008, a TVBS poll found that 68% of the respondents identify themselves as "Taiwanese" while 18% would call themselves "Chinese". In 2015, a poll conducted by the Taiwan Braintrust showed that about 90 percent of the population would identify themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.
In 2006, Wu Nai-teh of Academia Sinica said that "many Taiwanese are still confused about identity, and are easily affected by political, social, and economic circumstances." However, since then the sense of a collective Taiwanese identity has continued to increase despite fluctuations in support for pro-independence political parties. This has been cited as evidence that the concept of Taiwanese identity is not the product of local political manipulation, but an actual phenomenon of ethnic and sociopolitical identities (; ).
The 2023 documentary "Nous sommes Taïwan" (French for "We are Taiwan") by Pierre Haski explored the current state of Taiwanese identity.
In 2023 the LA Times wrote "Taiwan's odyssey to establish its distinct identity is manifold and complex. It won't be worldwide recognition of any single component of the culture, history, politics or food that accomplishes this but a combination of them all."
Migration to Taiwan from southern Asia began approximately 12,000 BC, but large-scale migration to Taiwan did not occur until the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century as a result of political and economic chaos in mainland China. The first large scale migration occurred as a result of the Manchu invasion and conquest of China, overthrowing the Ming dynasty and establishing the Qing dynasty, which was established in 1644 and remained until 1911.
In 1624, the Dutch East India Company established an outpost in modern-day Anping, Tainan in southern Taiwan after expelling the Spanish. The Dutch soon realized Taiwan's potential as a colony for trading deer hide, venison, rice, and sugar. However, Indigenous were not interested in developing the land and transporting settlers from Europe would be too costly. Due to the resulting labor shortage, the Dutch hired Han farmers from across the Taiwan Strait who fled the Manchu invasion of Ming dynasty China.
Koxinga brought along many more Chinese settlers during the Siege of Fort Zeelandia in which he expelled the Dutch. Migration of male laborers from Fujian, steadily increased into the 18th and 19th century. In time, this migration and the gradual removal of ethnic markers (coupled with the acculturation, intermarriage and assimilation of plains Indigenous with the Han) resulted in the widespread adoption of Han patterns of behavior making Taiwanese Han the ethnic majority.
It was not until the Japanese arrival in 1895 that Taiwanese first developed a collective Taiwanese identity in contrast to that of the colonizing Japanese. When the Chinese Civil War broke out between Kuomintang and the Chinese communists in 1945, there was another mass migration of people from mainland China to Taiwan fleeing the communists. These migrants are known as the mainland Chinese.
It is possible to find families where the older members still identify themselves as lowland aborigine, while the rest of the family may identify as Hoklo. Among the Hoklo, the common idiom, "has Tangshan father, no Tangshan mother" () refers how the Han people crossing the Taiwan Strait were mostly male, whereas their offspring would be through marriage with female Taiwanese aborigines.
Within the Taiwanese Han Hoklo community itself, differences in culture indicate the degree to which mixture with aboriginals took place, with most pure Hoklo Han in Northern Taiwan having almost no Aboriginal admixture, which is limited to Hoklo Han in Southern Taiwan. Brown 2004 . pp. 156-7. Plains aboriginals who were mixed and assimilated into the Hoklo Han population at different stages were differentiated by the historian Melissa J. Brown between "short-route" and "long-route". Brown 2004 . p. 162. The ethnic identity of assimilated Plains Aboriginals in the immediate vicinity of Tainan was still known since a pure Hoklo Taiwanese girl was warned by her mother to stay away from them. Brown 2004 . p. 157. The insulting name "fan" was used against Plains Aborigines by the Taiwanese, and the Hoklo Taiwanese speech was forced upon Aborigines like the Pazeh. Hoklo Taiwanese has replaced Pazeh and driven it to near extinction. Aboriginal status has been requested by Plains Aboriginals.
The term "Chinese Formosans" has been used to imply Hoklo descendants, Note: Per Demographics of Taiwan, the population quoted was valid circa 1905 to 1915. By 1967, the population had already surpassed 13 million. though this term has also been used to denote the Taiwanese people (whether of pure or mixed origin) in contrast to the Japanese and mountain aborigines.
The deep-rooted hostility between Taiwanese Indigenous peoples and (Taiwanese) Hoklo, and the Aboriginal communities' effective KMT networks contribute to Aboriginal skepticism against the DPP and the Indigenous tendency to vote for the KMT. Some aboriginal representatives such as May Chin, also known as Kao Chin Su-mei, ridiculed the "Han-native" Taiwanese independence supporters, and advocated for unification. She criticized the Japanese colonial period, probably because of her blue-camp affiliation, but ignored the period of KMT rule under which the aboriginals also suffered. (2025). 9783531943039, Springer VS. ISBN 9783531943039
The Taiwanese Hakka people communities, although arriving to Taiwan from mountains of eastern Guangdong and western Fujian, have also likely mixed through intermarriage with lowland Indigenous as well. Hakka family trees are known for identifying the male ancestors by their ethnic Hakka heritage while leaving out information on the identity of the female ancestors. Also, during the process of intermarriage and assimilation, many of the lowland Indigenous and their families adopted Hoklo people and Hakka family names. Much of this happened in Taiwan prior to the Japanese colonization of Taiwan, so that by the time of the Japanese colonization, most of the population that the Japanese classified as "Chinese" Hoklo people and "Chinese" Hakka were in truth already of mixed ancestry. Physical features of both Taiwanese aborigine and Chinese can be found amongst the Taiwanese mainstream today.
In addition to the Han people, there were also small numbers of Mongols, Hui, Manchu and other ethnic minorities among the Waishengren.
Historically, most Taiwanese people originated from China (under regimes before the PRC). Taiwanese people (of Chinese descent) have traveled between China and Taiwan throughout history. Taiwanese Indigenous peoples also have a minor presence in China (PRC). After the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed, with Taiwan (previously a Chinese province/prefecture) being ceded by Qing dynasty to the Japanese Empire, an expatriate/refugee community of Taiwanese in China was created.
The original Taiwanese Communist Party was closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) prior to the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The failed party would later evolve into the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, one of eight officially-recognised political parties within China (PRC) which is ultimately subservient to the CCP. Many members of this party have been Taiwanese people residing in China (PRC), i.e. "mainland China".
The Taiwanese community in Japan tends to be treated separately from the Chinese (PRC) community, both officially and socially, and is quite close to the local Japanese population. However, controversies have arisen due to dual-citizenship of ethnic-Taiwanese politicians in Japan, e.g. Renhō, since Japan doesn't technically recognise the Republic of China on Taiwan as a legitimate country, and since Japan doesn't allow dual-citizenship, especially not in politics.
Japanese people tend to have positive views towards Taiwanese people due to shared history, shared culture, shared values, and the close ties between Taiwan and Japan. Following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Taiwan was the most prominent humanitarian contributor, donating US$252 million in combined aid under then-ROC-president Ma Ying-jeou's administration. This is one major reason why Japanese people tend to have favourable views of Taiwan.
Historically, Koxinga, who established the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan, was born to a Japanese mother and Chinese father. Chiang Wei-kuo, the second (Adoption) son of Chiang Kai-shek (arguably the most well-known Taiwanese and ROC politician outside of Taiwan/China), was also born to a Japanese mother and Chinese father.
According to Census data from 2010, Taiwanese Americans have the highest education level of any ethnic group in the United States, if they are not classified together with Chinese Americans.
Not long after Lin's 2007 publication, several academics pointed out errors in Lin's statistical analysis, and questioned why some of her numbers contradicted each other. Subsequent full genome studies using large sample sizes and comparing thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms have come to the conclusion that Taiwanese Han people are primarily of mainland Chinese descent and have only very limited genetic mixture with the indigenous population.
A 2009 doctoral dissertation questions Lin's findings and claims that "the great number of Han immigrants after the 18th century is the main reason to consider that the early genetic contribution from Plains Indigenes to Taiwanese Han has been largely diluted and no longer exists in any meaningful way." The author, Shu-Juo Chen, called the belief that the majority of Taiwan's population have indigenous ancestry the "myth of indigenous genes." The lack of a totally complete and definite set of genetic record of Plains indigenous people, or conclusive understanding of their proto-Austronesian roots, further complicates the use of genetic data . It is important to mention that most Taiwanese Han descend from immigrants from southern China and that the southern Han Chinese people already have ancient Austronesian admixture (see Baiyue people).
The narrative of widespread intermarriage between Han men and indigenous women has also been challenged by Su-Jen Huang in a 2013 paper. According to Huang, intermarriage only involved a small minority of Han males. Historical sources only report men outnumbering women but not widespread intermarriage between Han men and native women. Only specific cases of intermarriage are mentioned while historical accounts indicate that the majority of Han men went back to the mainland to seek marriage. The gender imbalance also only lasted until the end of the early Qing period. Due to mass migration, within a few decades, the Han population vastly outnumbered the indigenous people so that even if intermarriage did happen it would have been impossible to meet demand. The fact that indigenous tribes survived all the way up until Japanese colonization indicates that indigenous women did not marry with Han men en masse.
A 2016 study by Chen et al. found that the Taiwanese Han shared a common genetic background with Han Chinese populations worldwide but were quite distant from Taiwanese Austronesians. The Taiwanese Han Chinese clustered into three cline groups: 5% were of northern Han Chinese ancestry, 79.9% were of southern Han Chinese ancestry, and 14.5% belonged to a third (T) group. The southern Han Chinese were descended from an admixture of northern Han Chinese and the indigenous peoples (Baiyue) of southern China. The T group individuals were genetically distinct from neighbouring Southeast Asians and Taiwanese Austronesian tribes but were similar to other southern Han Chinese. The T group individuals may have experienced evolutionary events independent from the other southern Han.
A 2021 study by Lo et al. revealed that most Taiwanese Han had considerable proportions of Austronesian-related ancestry. However, this Austronesian-related ancestry was also observable in other Han Chinese populations in mainland China and among Chinese Singaporeans. The researchers suggested that this ancient Austronesian-related ancestry arose from admixture events between Han Chinese and pre-Austronesian populations (Baiyue) that occurred in mainland China. This did not rule out more recent Han Chinese and Taiwanese indigenous admixture as the wide range in the proportion of Austronesian ancestry (0.1–62%) may be attributed to more recent admixture, but only one person out of the five hundred Taiwanese Han individuals examined was grouped closer to the Dusun people (who are closer to the Taiwanese indigenous peoples than Sino-Tibetan populations). There were highly distinct patterns of genetic structure in two Taiwanese indigenous populations (Ami and Atayal) in comparison to the Taiwanese Han populations (Hakka and Hokkien). The Taiwanese Han display similar patterns of ancestry with other Sino-Tibetan populations such as the Cantonese people, Chinese Singaporeans, and Tujia people. The study's conclusion was that the admixture event resulting in Island Southeast Asian (ISEA) ancestry likely occurred before the Han migration to Taiwan. Lin herself helped co-author this paper despite it contradicting her previous claims.
Nevertheless, Lin's early research has been continuously used by many Taiwanese independence activists to build a Taiwanese identity based on genetics. Activists have used Lin's findings to argue the view that the majority of Taiwanese who did not descend from migrants from the Chinese Civil War are not descendants of Han Chinese but rather descendants of Plains indigenous peoples; and therefore Taiwan should not be considered as part of a Greater China. However, this position has faced political strain. Taiwanese Plains indigenous people who have suffered racial and cultural assimilation often despise these so called "blood nationalists", whom they view as pushing a political agenda by claiming indigenous status. Alak Akatuang, secretary of the Pingpu (Plains) Indigenous Peoples Cultural Association, said that the pan-green camp used the indigenous peoples to create a national identity for Taiwan, but the idea that Taiwanese people are not overwhelmingly descended from Han settlers was false. According to Akatuang, Taiwan's independence shouldn't be established on the idea of blood relations and these people "ignore scientific evidence because they want to believe they are different from China." This harmed the legitimacy of the Pingpu movement for recognition and reparations, and they considered it deeply insulting: "The Pingpu were the first of Taiwan's Indigenous peoples to face colonization. After the Han people came, they stole our land. They murdered our ancestors. Then after a few hundred years, they said we were the same people. Do you think a Pingpu person can accept this?"
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