Excerpts from Wikipedia.org
Formosa (Taiwan)
The main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa (from Portuguese (Ilha) Formosa, meaning "beautiful (island)"), is located in East Asia off the coast of mainland China, southwest of the main islands of Japan but directly west of the end of Japan's Ryukyu Islands, and north-northwest of the Philippines. It is bound to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the South China Sea and the Luzon Strait, to the west by the Taiwan Strait and to the north by the East China Sea. The island is 394 kilometers (245 miles) long and 144 kilometers (89 miles) wide and consists of steep mountains covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation.
The Formosa Strait or Taiwan Strait
is a 180 km-wide strait between mainland China and the island of Taiwan. As part of Mainland China's National Expressway Plan a tunnel, or possibly a bridge, was proposed in 2005 to link the cities of Fuzhou and Taipei in Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait. If such an extreme construction would ever be built, it would by far exceed the length of any man-made tunnel in the world today. Engineers in Beijing state that a tunnel is technically feasible. Politicians in Taiwan stated that the project is propaganda for Beijing's One-China policy.
Republic of Formosa
The Republic of Formosa (臺灣民主國) was a short-lived republic that existed on the island of Taiwan in 1895, between the formal cession of Taiwan by the Qing Dynasty to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki and the arrival of Japanese troops and assumption of Japanese sovereignty. Though sometimes claimed by certain historians or politicians as the first Asian republic to have been proclaimed, it was predated by the Lanfang Republic, which had been established in 1777.
Formosan Mountain Dog
The Formosan Mountain Dog, commonly referred to as simply Formosan (臺灣土狗) is a breed of dog indigenous to Taiwan. Formosans are further classified into Taiya, Bunon, and Plain based on various physical characteristics. Originally kept by aboriginal Taiwanese as hunting dogs, purebred Formosans are extremely rare
Formosan Black Bear
The Formosan Black Bear (Ursus thibetanus formosanus, or Selenarctos thibetanus formosanus), also known as the white-throated bear, is a wild black bear and a subspecies of the Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus). The animals are endemic to Taiwan and are the largest animals and only bears (Ursidae) that can be found on the island. They can usually be seen in the mountainous forest areas in the eastern two-thirds of the island, at elevations between 1,000 and 3,500 m (3,300-10,000 ft).
Formosa
