The
Penghu islands (, also known as
Pescadores from the
Portuguese, meaning "fishermen", ) are an
archipelago off the western coast of
Taiwan in the
Taiwan Strait consisting of 90 small islands and islets covering an area of 141 square kilometers. The whole archipelago forms
Penghu County,
Taiwan Province,
Republic of China.
History
'Peng-hu' was first recorded in unofficial historical records and regional logs in 1171 during the
Southern Song Dynasty. From the middle of the
17th century to 1895,
Taiwan and the archipelago were ruled by
pirates, the colonial
Dutch Empire, the
Koxinga kingdom, and the
Qing Dynasty (
Manchu), successively.
Sino-French War
The Penghu archipelago was captured by the French in March 1885, in the closing weeks of the
Sino-French War, and evacuated four months later. The
Pescadores Campaign was the last campaign of Admiral
Amédée Courbet, whose naval victories during the war had made him a national hero in France. Courbet was among several French soldiers and sailors who succumbed to cholera during the French occupation of Penghu. He died aboard his flagship
Bayard in
Magong harbour on 11 June 1885.
First Sino-Japanese War
Defeated in northern China by the Japanese in the
First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing government ceded the islands to
Japan along with
Taiwan in the Sino-Japanese
Treaty of Shimonoseki of April 1895. The Japanese suspected that they might meet resistance when they attempted to occupy Taiwan, and their
invasion of Taiwan, hastily launched in late May 1895 in response to the proclamation of the
Republic of Formosa, was preceded by an attack on Qing forces on Penghu in March 1895, in which the Japanese defeated the Chinese garrison of the islands and occupied
Makung. The
Japanese occupation of Penghu prevented more Chinese troops from being sent to Taiwan, persuaded the Chinese negotiators at Shimonoseki that Japan was determined to annex Taiwan, and helped to ensure the success of the subsequent
Japanese invasion of Taiwan.
Cairo Declaration
In the
Cairo Declaration of 1943, the
United States,
United Kingdom, and China stated it to be their purpose that "all the territories that Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Formosa (
Taiwan) and the Pescadores (Penghu), shall be restored to the
Republic of China."
On
July 26,
1945, the three governments issued the
Potsdam Declaration, declaring that "the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out." In the
Treaty of San Francisco, Japan renounced sovereignty over Taiwan and Penghu but left their final disposition unsettled. The archipelago has been administered by the
Republic of China since the
Retrocession Day (October 25, 1945) as part of its
Taiwan Province.
In the early 1990s the
Penghu National Scenic Area that comprises most but not all of the islands and islets of the archipelago was created. Tourism has since become one of the main sources of income of the county.
A disaster struck on
May 25,
2002 when a
Boeing 747-200 aircraft operated by
China Airlines as
China Airlines Flight 611 flying from
Taipei,
Taiwan to
Hong Kong disintegrated and then exploded over the Islands and its wreckage slammed into the Taiwan Strait a couple of miles off coast. All 225 passengers and crew on board were killed.
CNN referred to the crash as the "Taiwan Tragedy."
Sub-county divisions
Subdivision of Penghu County
Altogether, there are 97 villages.
The main islands of Magong City/Husi Township, Baisha Township, and Siyu Township are the three most populous islands and are connected via bridges. Two shorter bridges connect Husi and Baisha. The bridge connecting Baisha and Siyu is the longest bridge in Republic of China and is called the Penghu Trans-Oceanic Bridge (澎湖跨海大橋 Peng Hu Kua Hai Da Qiao).
Miscellaneous facts
See also
