Because the PRC government has never conducted administrative management of Taiwan, it has not organized administrative divisions. In the early days of the PRC, the annual ''Brief Account of Administrative Divisions of the People's Republic of China
published by the government had no information on the establishment of provinces, cities and counties in Taiwan, and the provincial capital was not marked. It only had the words "awaiting liberation" in parentheses. After the reform and opening up, the annual Brief Account'' still had no information on the establishment and the name of the provincial capital. The parentheses were changed to "information temporarily unavailable". In the general map of the People's Republic of China in the booklet, the provincial capital was marked as "
Taipei", but not "Taipei City". Before 2016, in the map of "Taiwan Province" published by the PRC, Taiwan Province was divided into 7 cities (2 of which were marked as prefecture-level administrative regions, namely Taipei City and
Kaohsiung City; 5 of which were marked as county-level administrative regions, namely
Keelung City,
Taichung City,
Tainan City,
Hsinchu City and
Chiayi City) and 16 counties (namely Taipei County,
Taoyuan County,
Hsinchu County,
Yilan County,
Taichung County,
Miaoli County,
Changhua County,
Yunlin County,
Nantou County,
Kaohsiung County,
Tainan County,
Chiayi County,
Pingtung County,
Taitung County,
Hualien County and
Penghu County), with the provincial capital marked as Taipei City. After 2016, the map published by the PRC began to follow the administrative divisions set by the ROC government that currently actually rules Taiwan, corresponding to the administrative divisions of mainland China, dividing Taiwan into 9 cities (6 of which were marked as prefecture-level administrative regions; 3 of which were marked as county-level administrative regions) and 11 counties, with the provincial capital marked as Taipei City. On February 6, 2023, the
Ministry of Natural Resources issued the "Specifications for the Representation of Contents in Public Maps". The Regulations on the Representation of Taiwan Province Maps state that: (I) Taiwan Province shall be represented on the map as a provincial administrative unit. Taipei City shall be represented as the provincial administrative center (the legend shall indicate the provincial administrative center). New Taipei City, Taoyuan City, Taichung City, Tainan City and Kaohsiung City of Taiwan Province shall be represented as prefecture-level administrative centers: (II) The map area of Taiwan Province shall include Diaoyu Island and Chiwei Island (except for maps named "Taiwan Island"). Diaoyu Island and Chiwei Island may be included in the entire map of Taiwan Province, or the geographical relationship between Taiwan Island and Diaoyu Island and Chiwei Island may be reflected in the attached map".
Administrative subdivisions (Tianditu & Mapping database) } == Politics ==