1955 Taiwan Travel Service Pictorial Map of Taiwan

A scarce, colorful pictorial map of Taiwan, published in 1955 by the Taiwan Travel Service and printed by Southeast Art Printings. It presents the island as an idyllic, bountiful land while skirting the uncomfortable realities of colonialism, cultural assimilation, and Cold War conflict.

A Closer Look

The main island of Taiwan or Formosa is covered, along with the outlying islands of Lanyu and Penghu. Illustrations of temples, mountains, economic products (including tea, rice, timber, fish, pineapples, and tobacco), beaches, and other features appear throughout. Famous structures, like the Presidential Office Building (former Japanese Governor-General's Office) in Taipei, and attractions, such as the Taroko Gorge on the island's east coast, are also depicted. Two illustrations towards right on Formosa, along with two others around Lanyu, depict the islands' aboriginal peoples, a touchy subject at the time given the imposition of forced assimilation policies. A list of 'main sceneries' appears at right, while a legend at bottom-left notes railroad lines, highways, county (hsien) boundaries, settlements, and hot springs.

Historical Context

This map was most likely directed towards Americans visiting Taiwan, including government and military officials. American interest in Taiwan was at a peak around this time, in stark contrast to the situation a decade earlier. At the end of the World War II (1939 - 1945), the U.S. acceded to the demand of its Chinese ally that Taiwan, which had been signed over to Japan by the Qing Dynasty in 1895, be 'returned' to China. The island took on much greater geopolitical importance in the late 1940s, as it became the final stronghold of the anti-Communist Republic of China, which lost control of mainland China to the Communist Party. Still, the U.S. was reluctant to invest much effort in rescuing the R.O.C., which was notoriously corrupt and dictatorial, and was especially ambivalent about its leader, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi). Domestically on Taiwan, Chiang's government imposed an authoritarian police state to root out Communist agitators and instituted forced cultural assimilation, making Mandarin the language of public life and barring the use of Japanese, Taiwanese (Minnan), and aboriginal languages.

Chiang's saving grace came from the North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950. Suddenly, the U.S. was alarmed over the prospect of a wave of Communist invasions sweeping through Asia, and Taiwan emerged as a frontline in the global war against Communism. U.S. military support for the island shot up, resulting in a mutual defense treaty, signed in December 1954, and the 'Formosa Resolution' in January 1955, which authorized President Eisenhower to deploy U.S. military forces to defend Taiwan. Simultaneously, the Chinese Civil War, which had never fully ceased, heated up again, especially around a series of islands just off the mainland Chinese coast (known as the First Taiwan Straits Crisis). When the U.S. threatened to use nuclear weapons against the People's Republic, and the Soviet Union expressed reluctance to start a global nuclear war over Taiwan, the crisis abated, though it would reignite only three years later (the Second Taiwan Straits Crisis).

Publication History and Census

This map was drawn by Wang Feng (王楓) for the Taiwan Travel Service (台灣旅行社) and was printed by Southeast Art Printings (東南美術印刷廠) in June 1955 (Minguo 44). It is rare, with the only known example in institutional collections held by the Academia Sinica.