| Demographics of Taiwan | |
|---|---|
 Population pyramid of Taiwan at the end of 2021 | |
| Population | 23,347,374 (April 2023) |
| Growth rate | 0.04% (2022 est.) |
| Birth rate | 5.8 births/1,000 population (2023 est.) |
| Death rate | 8.8 deaths/1,000 population (2023 est.) |
| Life expectancy | 81.16 years |
| • male | 78.17 years |
| • female | 84.34 years |
| Fertility rate | 0.85 children born/woman (2023 est.) |
| Infant mortality rate | 3.97 deaths/1,000 live births |
| Net migration rate | 0.85 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2022 est.) |
| Age structure | |
| 0–14 years | 12.22% |
| 15–64 years | 69.72% |
| 65 and over | 18.07% |
| Sex ratio | |
| Total | 0.97 male(s)/female (2022 est.) |
| At birth | 1.06 male(s)/female |
| Under 15 | 1.06 male(s)/female |
| 65 and over | 0.73 male(s)/female |
| Nationality | |
| Nationality | Taiwanese |
| Major ethnic | Han Chinese |
| Language | |
| Official | Mandarin |
The population of Taiwan is approximately 23.35 million as of April 2023.[1]
Immigration of Han Chinese to the Penghu Islands started as early as the 13th century. The main island was inhabited by a diversity of Taiwanese indigenous peoples speaking Austronesian languages until Han settlement began in the early 17th century, around the time of the Ming–Qing transition, when workers were imported from Fujian to the colony of Dutch Formosa in the southwest of Taiwan. According to governmental statistics, in the early 21st century, 95% to 97% of Taiwan's population are Han Chinese, while about 2.3% are Taiwanese of Austronesian ethnicity.[2][3] Half the population are followers of one or a mixture of 25 recognized religions.
During the 20th century, the population of Taiwan rose more than sevenfold, from about 3 million in 1905 to more than 22 million by 2001. This high growth was caused by a combination of factors, such as very high fertility rates up to the 1960s, and low mortality rates.[4] In addition, there was a surge in population as the Chinese Civil War ended and the Kuomintang (KMT) forces retreated, bringing an influx of 1.2 million soldiers and civilians to Taiwan in 1948–1949, representing less than 15% of the population at the time (who constitute approximately 10% of the population in 2004[5]).[6][3][7] Consequently, the population growth rate after that was very rapid, especially in the late 1940s and 1950s, with an effective annual growth rate as high as 3.68% during 1951–1956.
Fertility rates decreased gradually thereafter; in 1984 the rate reached the replacement level (2.1 children per woman, which is needed to replace the existing population). Fertility rates have continued to decline. In 2010, Taiwan had a population growth of less than 0.2% and a fertility rate of only 0.9, the lowest rate ever recorded in that country. The population of Taiwan peaked at 23.6 million in 2019 and has been continuously decreasing ever since, raising fears of an aging population.
Most Taiwanese speak Mandarin. Around 70% of the people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien and 10% speak Hakka. Japanese speakers are becoming rare as the elderly generation who lived under Japanese colonization are dying out. The Formosan languages are endangered as the indigenous peoples have become acculturated under Chinese culture.
- ^ "Total Population". 19 April 2022.
- ^ Exec. Yuan (2014), p. 36,48.
- ^ a b Taiwan. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency., United States Central Intelligence Agency
- ^ Freedman, Ronald; Chang, Ming-Cheng; Sun, Te-Hsiung (1994). "Taiwan's Transition from High Fertility to Below-Replacement Levels". Studies in Family Planning. 25 (6): 317–331. doi:10.2307/2137876. ISSN 0039-3665. JSTOR 2137876.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
2004Pwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Exec. Yuan (2014), p. 48: "1.2 million"
- ^ Wu, Nai-teh (July 2005). "Transition without Justice, or Justice without History: Transitional Justice in Taiwan". Taiwan Journal of Democracy. 1 (1): 20.