There was a slight increase in the number of people who applied to register their ethnic status as Aborigines last year, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said yesterday.
The number of Aborigines rose by 2.1 percent last year to 504,531, compared with 2008, possibly because more Aborigines filed applications to mark their ethnic identity, the ministry said in a statement, without elaborating on the reasons behind the applications.
Those who lived in mountainous areas accounted for 52.9 percent of the Aboriginal population, or 266,716 people, outnumbering those who lived in the plains areas, the ministry said.
There are 14 officially recognized tribes — the Amis, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, Puyuma, Rukai, Tsou, Saisiat, Yami, Thao, Kavalan, Truku, Sakizaya and Sedeq.
Each of the recognized tribes has their own distinct language, culture, customs, traditions and social structures.
Ministry statistics showed that among the 14 tribes, more than 90 percent of the population of Sedeq, Tsou, Yami, Truku, Bunun and Atayal lived in mountainous regions while 99.6 percent of the population of Amis lived in plain regions.
The Amis, Paiwan and Atayal remained the largest tribes, the ministry said.
Taoyuan County’s Aboriginal population ranked third among Aborigines in cities and counties last year, outnumbering those of Pingtung County for the first time, the ministry’s data showed.
Hualien and Taitung still had the most Aboriginal residents, while Matsu, Kinmen and Penghu had the smallest number, the data showed.
Aboriginal communities are aging more slowly than other ethnic communities, the ministry said.
The average age of Aborigines remained lower than Taiwanese by 5.45 years and the gap was widening, the ministry said.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
RSS