Islam in Taiwan: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Taiwan

Formally the Republic of China, it is an island nation with total area of36,191 sq km, consisting of the main island of Taiwan (35,980 sq km) which also used to be called Formosa and hundreds of tiny largely uninhabited islands. A map of Taiwan is presented in Figure 2.6.7. It was taken by Japan from Mainland China in 1895 and returned in 1945. After Communist takeover of Mainland China in 1949, Taiwan de facto separated from the Mainland.

Islam entered here in 1661 when the army of the Chinese MingDynasty landed on the island to free it from Dutch occupation. Amongthose Chinese soldiers many were Muslims from Quanzhou in theFukien Province. Over the years, the Muslim community graduallyshrank through intermarriage, adoption of other customs, andpersecution by the Japanese colonial rule. By the end of the Japanese rule, the remainder of the decedents of this first Muslim wave no longer embraced Islam.

The second wave of Muslim migration arrived in 1949 with thecentral government to the Island after fleeing the mainland due to thecommunist revolution there. This wave consisted of 20,000 ChineseMuslims who were mostly soldiers, civil servants or food serviceworkers. According to Asian Barometer Survey data, the percentage of Muslims was 0.07% in 2001, 0.3% in 2006, 2010 and 2014. Thus, assumingthat the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.05 of a percentagepoint per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain over0.1 million in the second half of this century, reaching 0.5% by 2050 and0.7% by the end of this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Taiwan

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.