At the end of
World War II,
Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945. The
Nationalist government started the process to takeover
Taiwan on behalf of the
Allies. The
Taiwan Provincial Administrative Office was established by the
Executive Yuan in
Chungking on September 1, 1945. The office moved to Taipei on October 25, 1945. After the
February 28 incident in 1947, the
Executive Yuan decided to restructure the Provincial Administrative Office as a provincial government. On May 16, 1947, the
Taiwan Provincial Government was established. As the Republic of China progressively lost control of mainland China to Communist Party forces in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the national government relocated to Taiwan in late 1949. However, Taiwan continued to be governed by a provincial government even though from 1955 it was one of only two provincial governments still functioning (the other being Fujian province, controlling some islands off the mainland coast). The remainder of Fujian province still under Republic of China control was placed under military administration in 1956, and its provincial government was downsized and relocated to Taiwan island. This left Taiwan province as the only fully functioning provincial government. From 1967, a number of major cities in Taiwan were elevated to special municipalities directly controlled by the national government, and moved outside the jurisdiction of Taiwan province. During the constitutional reform initiated in 1996, the ROC authorities decided to downsize the provincial structure due to the reasons that to solve the problem of overlapping personnel and administrative resources between the provincial and central governments, and cut excessive public spending. The provinces were streamlined and ceased to be self-governing bodies in December 1998, with their administrative functions transferred to the
National Development Council and other ministries of the
Executive Yuan as well as second-tier local governments such as
counties. However, the position of the Chairman of the Provincial Government and Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council are retained to comply with
the Constitution. In July 2018, all provincial governmental organs were formally abolished, with budget and personnel removed. == Historical government buildings ==