The first administrative divisions entitled "city" were established in the 1920s when Taiwan was
under Japanese rule. At this time cities were under the jurisdiction of
prefectures. After the
World War II, nine (9) out of eleven (11)
prefectural cities established by the Japanese government were reorganized into provincial cities based on the
Laws on the City Formation (). However, the populations of
Hualien (Karenkō) and
Yilan (Giran) were too low to become a provincial city, but they were of more importance than
urban townships. Thus the
Scheme on the Local Rules in Various Counties and Cities of Taiwan Province () provided for the creation of county-administered cities along with
urban townships and
rural townships. In 1951, a large scale administrative division reorganization took place in
Taiwan. The size of
counties shrink and the county-administered districts were abolished. This puts county-administered cities and townships into the same level in the hierarchy. Four
provincial cities were also downgraded to county-administered cities after this reorganization. Since county-administered cities are based on the law for
Taiwan Province,
Kinmen and
Lienchiang Counties of
Fukien Province do not have any city under their jurisdiction. The population criterion was originally 50,000 in the 1940s, but was raised to 100,000 in 1959, again in 1977 to 150,000, and in 2015 it was lower back to 100,000. Under the current. Currently, the
Local Government Act regulates the creation of a county-administered city, in which a city needs to have a population between 100,000 and 500,000 and occupies major political, economical and cultural roles. Not all existing county-administered cities are qualified for the population test, they were built for historical reasons. == Current county-administered cities ==