Photo of Taiwan’s capitol Taipei.
Brad Varner, Caitlyn Shearer, Hizgial Koko, Joshua Junnier, Donghui Kim, Scarlett Fox
Taiwan or the Republic of China, is a country that is not only far in mileage from the United States, but also far in distance in many other factors. While Taiwan’s healthcare and transportation infrastructure is much like ours here in the United States, the geographical and demographical differences in distance is far from similar. With the rising population growth here in the United States at 0.78%, Taiwan falls short with just an increase of 0.23%. Taiwan is very different from the United States in land mass, population, and population density. With the land mass the United States has just over 5.5 million square miles whereas Taiwan has just over 20,000 square miles. Population size is another factor that the United States dominates. With the United States being the fourth largest county in population size sitting with just 321 million people. Taiwan with just 7% of that with just over 23 million people. Now, population density is where we find the largest difference than any other statistic out there in comparison for these two countries. The population density for the United States is just a mere fifty-six people per mile. Taiwan exceeds that number by just over a thousand! Taiwan’s population density is 1,168 people per square mile. This will make purchasing land within Taiwan for a business very difficult! – Brad
Taiwan lies between Japan and Philippines, off the southeastern coast of China. Due to Taiwan’s location a massive mountain range covers two-thirds of the island and includes East Asia’s highest peak known as Yü Shan. Also, because of two weather patterns; “ a continental monsoon that brings cool, wet weather to the northern half of the island between October and March and an ocean monsoon that brings rain to the southern half between April and September” gives Taiwan the subtropical weather throughout each season even though its climate remains marine tropical. However, because Taiwan, is an island, monsoons easily bring devastating typhoons to the inhabitants. Most mainlanders live in the north, yet Taiwanese live along the western coast, and aborigines live in the mountains and on the eastern coast. – Koko
Taiwan’s infrastructure is no short of being absolutely incredible. For such a tiny island, the nation boasts two international airports and seven international harbors, all used to trade While these are all wonderful, Taiwan’s inner-transportation infrastructure is nothing to overlook, as the Island nation crafted long and winding roads which traverse the mountainous terrain in order to take citizens from one major city to the next. Despite the Island’s size, Taiwan is also equipped with domestic airports and an intricate system of railways all to distribute supplies and transport citizens all across the island. Despite all of this, Taiwan still offers all that come to the country cheap gasoline and telecommunication networks which allow for a bolstered and informed public. Cheap utilities that are also of high-quality is a staple of Taiwanese life and it shows it shows in the well-crafted travel systems offered. These amenities don’t stop there, either, as Taiwan continues to expand its public transportation systems by bringing metropolitan subways in its capital of Taipei as well as another city, Kaohsiung, in order to test how exactly the Taiwanese will react to such things. If all is successful, the government will expand these projects in order to implement them in all cities on the island. – Junnier
The nation’s Traffic Management System of the Integrated Network of Freeways and Expressways has effectively combined advanced technology and traffic management strategies to manage traffic on highways. The system provides high-tech, people-oriented real-time traveler information services through media, websites, phones, mobile apps, and roadside equipment to enhance the overall efficiency of the network. Apart from road widening, many traffic management measures have been undertaken to ease traffic congestion, including ramp metering systems, the opening of road shoulders to small vehicles on congested sections during peak traffic hours, and the addition of auxiliary lanes where needed. In consideration of the huge traffic flows during holidays (such as Lunar New Year), the government has responded with a variety of measures, including scheduled toll-free periods, car-pool lanes, and entrance-ramp closures. – Kim
Taiwan has created a system of predicting when disease outbreaks are going to occur so they can know how to alter the healthcare system to handle the outbreaks in an effective manner. Many diseases are fueled by climate change and the change in weather patterns, therefore Taiwan has figured out how to track outbreaks through the changes in the climate. The country’s officials have been able to determine the correlation between disease outbreak and climate change by studying the climate changes and illnesses in Taiwan’s history. Through the research that was done on climate change and disease outbreaks, there is a system that is being developed called the Early Warning System (EWS). This system is meant to warn the citizens ahead of the climate change that an outbreak of an illness or disease could happen. As of right now, research has shown that there are 18 diseases that have potential to be identified by the early warning system. This system was brought upon by increased demand for the system after new advances in obtaining data showed that it was possible to predict the outbreaks ahead of time. While the system is not perfect, it is still in development as new data is found in the on-going research in the correlation between disease outbreaks and climate change. – Shearer
The healthcare infrastructure of Taiwan is a unique one. It is actually one of the most highly praised healthcare systems. While they have such a highly praised system, they have many new demands that have to be met. There has been a rise in the chronically ill and old aged and this had led to an overuse of supplies and medical facilities, which they were not prepared for the influx of need. Even with their advanced facilities, the average length of stay in a hospital is 10 days, which is one of the highest in Asia. It should also be noted that in 2011 about 62% of their healthcare expenditure was funded from the public sector. While they have a fantastic system for immediate needs they do have large concerns for the funding of long-term care and medical tourism policy initiatives. – Fox
Works Cited
“Distance Between Taiwan and United States Is.” Distance Between Taiwan Taiwan and United States United States. Disween.com. Web. 23 Feb. 2016
“Using Climate to Predict Infectious Disease Outbreaks: A Review.” World Health Organization. World Health Organization, 2004. Web.
“Factbook.” Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
