Introduction
The island of Taiwan is separated from the Chinese mainland by the Taiwan Strait, which is about 150 km wide. It has an area of about 36,000 sq km and a coastline about 1,520 km in length (including the Penghu Archipelago to the west).
The island is situated on the convergence of the Eurasian and Philippine plates, and the rising of its Eastern Coastal Range is a product of plate tectonics. The island is also part of an island arc at the meeting point of the Ryukyu and Luzon arcs, which bend convexly toward the Asian continent.
The eastern half of the island consists of a metamorphic complex of upper Palaeozoic age, bordered by the Eastern Coastal Range of Miocene volcanic and younger sedimentary rock. The western foothills of the Central Range are composed of Tertiary marine sedimentary formations, and the Western Piedmont and the Western Coastal Plain occupy the western half of the island (Ho 1975).
The present outlines of the coast are related to these geological...
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Ho CS (1975) An introduction to the geology of Taiwan. Ministry of Economic Affairs, Republic of China, Taipei
Hsu TL (1962) A study on the coastal geomorphology of Taiwan. Proc Geol Soc China 5:29–45
Hsu TL (1964) Hoodoo rocks at the Yehliu area, northern coast of Taiwan. Bull Geol Surv Taiwan 15:37–43
Hsu TL (1985) Taiwan. In: Bird ECF, Schwartz ML (eds) The World’s Coastline. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, pp 829–831
Shih TT (1980) The evolution of coastlines and the development of tidal flats in western Taiwan. Geogr Res 6:1–36 (In Chinese)
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Hsu, J.R. (2010). Taiwan. In: Bird, E.C.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of the World's Coastal Landforms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8639-7_220
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