Fuchien Province, Republic of China
Fuchien Province (), also romanized as Fujian and rendered as Fukien, is a nominal province of the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) without formal administrative function. It includes three small archipelagos off the coast of the Fujian Province of the People's Republic of China, namely the Matsu Islands, which make up Lienchiang County, and the Wuqiu Islands and Kinmen Islands, which make up Kinmen County. The seat of the administrative centre is Jincheng Township of Kinmen County which serves as its de facto capital. The province is also known as the Golden Horse, after the literal reading of the Chinese character abbreviation for "Kinmen-Matsu". The islands are the only part of a larger province that remain ROC-controlled. The People's Republic of China gained control of the mainland portion in 1949 during the Chinese Civil War. The islands were under military administration during the Cold War; travel restrictions were not lifted until 1992. Provincial administration was transferred to the national and county governments in 1998 following government reforms. The provincial government was practically abolished in 2018. History 

The Xinhai Revolution deposed the Qing dynasty brought the province into the rule of the Republic of China. Fujian briefly gained independence from China again under the Fujian People's Government until it was recontrolled by the ROC during the Warlord Era. Parts of the province in the northwestern area of Fujian were controlled by the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet, a component territory controlled by the Chinese Soviet Republic until its collapse in 1934 at the start of the Long March. It came under Japanese sea blockade during Second Sino-Japanese War. During the Chinese Civil War, the ROC lost control of mainland China, including most of Fujian province, and was forced to relocate to Taiwan, while the victorious Chinese Communist forces established the PRC in 1949, subsequently the capital of Fujian was also moved from Foochow to Jincheng. In the Battle of Guningtou, however, ROC forces were able to defend the island of Quemoy (Kinmen) just off the coast of Fujian from communist attack. As a result, the ROC has been able to hold on to a number of offshore islands of Fujian, and has continued to maintain a separate Fujian Provincial Government to govern these islands, parallel to the province of Fujian in mainland China. In 1956, due to heightened potential for military conflict with the PRC, the ROC central government moved the Fujian provincial government out of Fujian to within Taiwan Province in Xindian (now part of New Taipei), and the islands were placed under an extraordinarily tight military administration due to their extreme proximity to mainland China. This was an unusual situation where the government of a province was located and operating in a different province. With the easing of cross-strait relations between the PRC and ROC and the democratization of the ROC in the 1990s, the islands were returned to civilian government in 1992. On 15 January 1996, the provincial government moved back to Kinmen, on Fujian soil. Beginning in 2010, the ROC significantly diluted the powers of the two provinces it governs, namely Taiwan and Fujian. Most of the authority at the Fujian province level has been delegated to the two county governments of Kinmen and Lienchiang. Government

The Governor of Fujian Province was the head of the Fujian Provincial Government, the governor was also titled the "Chairperson of the Fujian Provincial Government". According to the Additional Articles of the Constitution, the governor was appointed by the central government. The Fujian Provincial Government was located in Jincheng, Kinmen between January 1996 and 2018. Provincial administration was transferred to counties and the national-level National Development Council in 1998, with the transition occurring in 1999 and 2000. This followed 1997 constitutional reforms to downsize provincial governments. The provincial government was reduced to a local interface for the national government with appointed rather than elected officers; it became dormant when the remaining staff and responsibilities were transferred in 2018. The Kinmen-Matsu Joint Services Center was founded in 2017 as the local government office handling administration of the islands. It took over the remaining responsibilities of the provincial government. Subdivisions 

Fujian province nominally comprises two counties: Kinmen County and Lienchiang County. These islands have a total area of  and a total population of 71,000 (2001). The following are the islands of Fujian under the administration of the ROC, given by county:

The PRC claims Kinmen as a county of Quanzhou, Fujian and the Matsu Islands as a township of Lianjiang County, Fuzhou, Fujian (with some islands claimed as parts of other areas). Culture and Demography 
Culturally, its population is predominantly of Chinese ethnicity, as Fujian remains one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces of the country. Each dialects of the language group Min Chinese were most commonly spoken within the province, including the Fuzhou dialect of northeastern Fujian and various Hokkien dialects of southeastern Fujian. Hakka Chinese is also spoken, by the Hakka people in Fujian. Min dialects, Hakka and Mandarin Chinese are mutually unintelligible. Due to emigration, a sizable amount of the ethnic Chinese populations in Southeast Asia speak Southern Min (or Hokkien). Education 

 National Quemoy University

See also 
 Taiwan Province
 Fujian
 Politics of the Republic of China
 Kinmen-Matsu Joint Services Center
 Battle of Kuningtou
 First Taiwan Strait Crisis
 Second Taiwan Strait Crisis
 Third Taiwan Strait Crisis
 Chekiang Province, Republic of China

Notes

Words in native languages

References

External links 

 ROC Fujian Provincial Government 
 

Provinces of the Republic of China (1912–1949)
 
Subdivisions of Taiwan