Redirected from Lienchiang
The Matsu Islands (馬祖列島 or less frequently, 馬祖群島 Pinyin: Mázǔ) are a minor archipelago of 19 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait administered as part of Lienchiang County (連江 Pinyin: Lianjiang), Fujian Province of the Republic of China (ROC) (based on Taiwan). Not all of what is historically part of Lienchiang county is under the control of the ROC. The People's Republic of China controls the part of the county adjoining the mainland and has a separate adminstration for that jurisdiction (See: Lianjiang County).
Quemoy is the other Fujianese island controlled by the ROC.
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Some crewmen of Zheng He temporarily stayed on the islands. In early Qing Dynasty, pirates gather here and residents temporarily left.
After the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan in 1949, the ROC retained the part of Lienchiang County offshore (and the entire Kinmen County as well). The common romanization used in the ROC is Wade-Giles (Lienchiang) while the PRC uses pinyin (Lianjiang). However, the name is the same in Chinese.
In April 2003, the county government started considering changing the name to Matsu County to avoid confusion with the county of the same name on the mainland. This is the first example of a local government officially wishing to change its name.
Altogether, there are 22 Lienchiang villages, which are further divided into 137 neighborhoods (鄰 lín).
All townships, except Chukuang, are named after the largest island in its jurisdictional area, but most townships also include other islets.
Another set of coordinates: 119°51'-120°31' E, 25°55'-26°44' N
Tungyin is the northernmost and Tungchu is the southernmost.
Areas:
Average annual temperature is 8.9°, with the lowest point being 1.3°.
Chen (陳) is the most common surname, then Lin (林), Wang (王), Cao (曹), and Liu (劉).
Several islands are not inhabited permanently, some of which are stationed by ROC soldiers.
There are also mosses and ferns rare or absent on Mainland China and Taiwan
The Matsu Nankan Heavenly Empress Palace (馬祖南竿天后宮), a temple dedicated to the goddess, contains the sarcophagus of Lin Muoniang. It is, however, not as popular as the Meizhou temple.
Most Taiwanese pilgrims to Meizhou start off their journey in Matsu Islands because they are the closest ROC-controlled base to Meizhou, which is controlled by the PRC
See also: Political divisions of Taiwan
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump