Taipei (Taibei) city (state capital), history - - Pictures
Chinese from Fujian province in southern China began settling in Taiwan in the 15th century. By 1820 Taipei's original occupants, the aboriginal Ping-pu, were pushed out of the Taipei area. In 1809 Mengchia was made the official seat of Taipei County, an administrative area of Fujian province on the Chinese mainland, and in 1875 Taipei became a separate prefecture. By the 1890s a new settlement at Tataochen replaced Mengchia as the center of Taipei. In 1894 Taipei was set as the capital of the recently established province of Taiwan. The following year, Japan seized Taiwan after their defeat of China in the First Sino-Japanese War. Taipei remained the capital of the Japanese colony of Taiwan and the city grew rapidly under Japanese colonial administration. Chinese control of the island resumed in 1945 following Japan's defeat in World War II. When mainland China fell to the Communists in 1949, the Kuomintang government fled to Taiwan and proclaimed Taipei its temporary national capital, a status it retains today.
