COUNTY-CONTROLLED CITY

A 'county-controlled city' (縣轄市) is one of the 32 cities in Taiwan Province of the Republic of China administered under one of the 16 counties of the Republic of China. On the same level as a ROC township, it is the lowest-level city of ROC, below provincial and direct-control municipality. In contrast, the counties under the People's Republic of China cannot administer cities (but since it has prefecture-level city absent in ROC, it still has three kinds of cities as well). A county-controlled city has urban villages (里) directly under it.
The two criteria of a county-controlled city originally are:

★ population between 150,000 and 500,000

★ advanced industry and transportation network
The population criteria was originally 50,000 in the 1940s, but was raised to 100,000 in 1959, and again in 1977 to the present level.
At first, in late January 1946, there were only two county-controlled cities: Hualien and Yilan, which were prefecture-controlled cities (州轄市) under the Japanese Occupation. (The Kuomintang did not create such cities on the Mainland before they fled.) Taipei County has the most county-controlled cities (10). For all places ever obtained the county-controlled status, see the chart below:

Contents

Timeline

Timeline

Below, unless noted otherwise in parenthesis, the newly created cities were towns that exceeded the 150,000 criteria.

Date	Addition	#
August 16, 1950	Chiayi (originally provincial city)	3
December 1, 1951	Hsinchu, Changhua, and Pingtung (originally provincial cities)	6
April 1, 1962	Sanchong City, Taipei County	7
July 1, 1962	Jhongli City, Taoyuan County	8
January 25, 1971	Taoyuan City, Taoyuan	9
July 1, 1972	Banciao City, Taipei and Fongshan City, Kaohsiung County	11
January 1, 1976	Taitung City, Taitung County	12
March 1, 1976	Fengyuan (Fongyuan), Taichung County	13
January 1, 1979	Yonghe City and Jhonghe City, Taipei	15
January 15, 1980	Sinjhuang (Hsinchuang) and Sindian City, Taipei	17
December 25, 1981	All county seats (originally ''jhen''-township) upgraded to county-controlled cities, namely, ★ Miaoli, Miaoli ★ Nantou, Nantou ★ Douliou, Yunlin ★ Sinying, Tainan ★ Makung, Penghu	22
July 1, 1982	remove Hsinchu and Chiayi (to be provincial cities)	20
October 31, 1988	Jhubei, Hsinchu (county seat)	21
July 1, 1991	Taibao, Chiayi (county seat)	22
March 1, 1992	Pingjhen, Taoyuan	23
September 10, 1992	Puzih, Chiayi (originally ''siang''-township, county seat)	24
May 1, 1993	Yongkang, Tainan (originally ''siang''-township)	25
June 26, 1993	Tucheng City, Taipei	26
November 1, 1993	Dali, Taichung	27
January 1, 1995	Bade, Taoyuan	28
August 1, 1996	Taiping, Taichung	29
October 6, 1997	Lujhou City, Taipei	30
July 1, 1999	Sijhih (Hsichih), Taipei	31
October 4, 1999	Shulin City, Taipei	32

Lienchiang and Kinmen Counties do not have any cities.