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Asian Studies: Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwanese flag

Background Information

Encyclopedia Britannica - Taiwan

Full-text journal and magazine articles, primary sources, multimedia, and other unique resources and tools that make research easier and more productive.

​​​​​​​The World Factbook - Taiwan 

Basic intelligence on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, environment, communications, transportation, military, terrorism, and transnational issues.

BBC Country Profiles - Taiwan

An instant guide to the history, politics, and economic background of countries and territories.

UofL Government Resource Guide - Taiwan

Our Government Resources guide provides an extensive list of articles related to politics, culture, and society for every country across the globe.

Statistics

UofL Databases

Open Access

News

UofL Databases

Recommended Titles:

BBC Selected Newspaper Articles

BBC Selected Wire Articles

China Post, The (Taiwan)

Taipei Times (Taiwan)

Taiwan News (Taiwan)

Books

Taiwan: a New History
Why Taiwan Matters
Uncharted Strait
Transforming Empire in Japan and East Asia
Lost Histories
Lesser Dragons
Formosa Betrayed
The Generalissimo
Accidental State
A Taste of Freedom
Playing in Isolation

Primary Sources

These databases and websites provide access to digital archival materials such as manuscripts, letters, photographs, moving image and sound materials, artwork, books, diaries, and other artifacts. You can also visit our main pages for Asiaand East Asia for additional databases and resources covering broader regions.

Open Access

Taiwan eBook database - 台湾华文电子书库

Publications from 1911 to 1949 collected by domestic libraries, and also includes academically authorized works by well-known scholars and experts in the domestic humanities and social fields, and government publications authorized by government agencies. The content topics cover 12 topics including general categories, philosophy and religion, science and engineering, agriculture, forestry, fishery and animal husbandry, medicine and domestic economics, economics and finance, education, society, politics, law, military, history and geography, language and literature, and art.

Digital Taiwan: Culture and Nature 数码台湾 - 文化与自然

This search platform is a multilingual database portal constructed by the Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program. It integrates 5.6 million items preserved in over 760 sites accumulated from different disciplines and different institutes throughout Taiwan’s national digitization projects over a decade. The subjects include: archaeology, rare books and ancient documents, rubbings, geology and architecture etc. All the data are accessible via the union catalog.

Academia Sinica Digital Archives 中央研究院数字档案馆

The archives have integrated the Academia Sinica’s over 1.28 million precious digital resources and 164 websites, providing the ability to conveniently search across multiple databases. It serves as a threshold for the general public to enter into the world of digital archives, as well as the foundation for academic research and many further applications. The archive also gathers many popular science articles to bring users into closer contact with specialized knowledge.

Reading Digital Atlas 阅读数字地图集

This website collects Ming-Qing Dynasty atlases from catalogs of the Library of Congress and the British Library, with analyses provided by National Palace Museum researcher Lin Tian-Ren. Some records are viewable in English with a link to the entry in the Library of Congress database

Xiaoxue Database

This collection consists of more than 220,000 Chinese characters, ranging from oracle bone scripts, bronze inscriptions and texts surviving from the Waring States Period (c. 5th century BC ~ 221 BC). It contains more than 1.34 million phonetic data across the ancient, medieval, and modern periods, as well as more than 360,000 citations of dictionary entry. 

Digital Resources for Sinology Studies in Taiwan 台灣漢學研究數字資源

This website provides references and links for researchers, research groups, and libraries in fields related to "Sinology Studies" and "Taiwan Studies," both domestic and international. The contents are curated from websites under the "Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program." Listings are sorted into 8 categories: Archives, Full-text Databases, Anthropology, Rare Books, Rubbings, Art & Sounds, Maps, and Others. Each listing includes the website name, web address, and descriptions in Chinese and English.

Cyber Island 網絡島

"Cyber Island" was born in 2006 to record and preserve a variety of images, in hopes of presenting a more complete portrait of Taiwan, and to act as a window for the world to come into contact with Taiwanese images. Renowned photographers, cultural history studios, smaller private collections, and individuals interested in photography were gathered from all over, under a Creative Commons license, to jointly construct a jigsaw puzzle of Taiwanese images belonging to the whole population, presenting the diverse faces of Taiwan.

Open Museum 開放博物館

This digital museum combines functions for collection, curation, and display, and serves as a platform to translate and showcase Academia Sinica’s research. Through open licensing methods, it gathers open resources across international borders, and presents valuable archives belonging to organizations and private collectors. By developing various presentation tools and modules, it provides an environment adaptable to different multimedia narratives, in service of digital exhibition.