Pingtung County’s population declined by 6,600 people last year, marking 14 consecutive years of dwindling population.
The latest data compiled by the Ministry of the Interior gave Pingtung County’s total population as 841,253, consisting of 430,000 male residents and 410,000 female residents.
A total of 4,700 couples married in the county last year, while 1,900 couples filed for divorce, the data showed.
The number of people above the age of 65 exceeded 121,000, corresponding to 14.5 percent of the county’s total population, the ministry data show.
There were 5,266 births and 8,114 deaths in the county last year, while 3,816 people moved out of Pingtung.
Kaohsiung received the majority of the people moving out of Pingtung, with five other cities accounting for the rest, the Pingtung County Government said, adding that the data show females are more inclined to move away from the area than males.
Compared with 2014, the county lost 6,664 residents, bringing the population growth/decrease ratio to 78 per million.
The Pingtung County Government’s department of civil affairs said the county’s population, which was 460,000 in 1950, reached its peak of 913,000 residents in 1997, adding that the county’s population has been declining since 2002.
Department Director Cheng Wen-hua (鄭文華) said the county has been affected by the restructuring of Kaohsiung into a special municipality and the nationwide decline in birth rates.
Low birth rates and county residents moving to other cities are problems that many counties are facing and the local governments are not equipped to handle the issue, Cheng said.
The central government should make solving the problem a priority, Cheng said, adding that aside from improving the overall economy, the central government should not be focusing its resources on special municipalities.
Only by giving rural counties and townships more resources can they slowly reverse the emigration problem, Cheng said.
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
President William Lai (賴清德) has appointed former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) to attend the late Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican City on Saturday on his behalf, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today. The Holy See announced Francis’ funeral would take place on Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square. The ministry expressed condolences over Francis’ passing and said that Chen would represent Taiwan at the funeral and offer condolences in person. Taiwan and the Vatican have a long-standing and close diplomatic relationship, the ministry said. Both sides agreed to have Chen represent Taiwan at the funeral, given his Catholic identity and
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
RSS