臺灣

Etymology
Appears to be first attested in a memorial to the imperial government by official He Kai in 1635:

Officially, no later than 1684 with the creation of. A phonetic transliteration of an ethnonym of a tribe in the southwest part of the island in the area of Anping, Tainan, southwest Taiwan, variously recorded in Dutch records as or  or. A Dutch missionary referred to this group as Taiouwang no later than 1636. Other phonetic transliterations in Chinese characters included,  , , and.

Possibly derived from, which is a compound of.

.

Proper noun

 * 1)  Taiwan
 * 2)  Taiwan Province
 * 1)  Taiwan Province
 * 1)  Taiwan Province

Usage notes

 * Although use of the full traditional form is encouraged by the ROC Ministry of Education, the alternate traditional form  is now more commonly used in Taiwan, and is the standard in Hong Kong. Further, the form 台湾, coincidentally the Simplified Chinese form, is frequently used in Taiwan.
 * In Min Nan, the character is usually read as oan (e.g., ). The reading of oân in the context of the toponym Taiwan is an exception stemming from the historical variant, and  is properly read as Tâi-oân.

Descendants
Others: