Administrative Divisions of Taiwan - Special Considerations - Re-organization

Re-organization

There has been some criticism of the current administrative scheme as being inefficient and not conducive to regional planning. In particular, most of the administrative cities are much smaller than the actual metropolitan areas, and there are no formal means for coordinating policy between an administrative city and its surrounding areas.

Before 2008, the likelihood of consolidation was low. Many of the cities had political demographics which were very different from their surrounding counties, making the prospect of consolidation highly politically charged. For example, while the Kuomintang argued that combining Taipei City, Taipei County, and Keelung City into a metropolitan Taipei region would allow for better regional planning, the Democratic Progressive Party argued that this was merely an excuse to eliminate the government of Taipei County, which it had at times controlled, by swamping it with votes from Taipei City and Keelung City, which tended to vote Kuomintang.

On 1 October 2007, Taipei County was upgraded to a quasi-municipality (準直轄市) on the same level as Kaohsiung City and Taipei City. This allowed the county to have the organizational and budgetary framework of a de jure municipality, but it was still formally styled as a county. Taichung County and Taichung City lobbied the central government for similar status. Taoyuan County was also upgraded to a quasi-municipality on 1 January 2011, as its population was above 2 million on the date of elevation.

Under President Ma Ying-jeou's administration, the central government has reorganized more counties and cities. The following mergers and promotions were approved in 2009 and became effective on 25 December 2010.

• Kaohsiung County was merged with the special municipality of Kaohsiung to form a single special municipality
• Taichung County was merged with the provincial city of Taichung to form a single special municipality
• Tainan County was merged with the provincial city of Tainan to form a single special municipality
• Taipei County was renamed New Taipei and became a special municipality