The Penghu ( , Hokkien POJ: Phîⁿ-ô͘ or Phêⁿ-ô͘ ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, located approximately west from the main island of Taiwan across the Penghu Channel, covering an area of . The archipelago collectively forms of Taiwan and is the smallest county of Taiwan. The largest city is Magong, located on the largest island, which is also named Magong.
The Penghu islands first appear in the historical record during the Tang dynasty and were inhabited by Chinese people by the Southern Song dynasty, during which they were attached to Jinjiang County of Fujian. The archipelago was formally incorporated as an administrative unit of China in 1281 under Tong'an County of Jiangzhe Province during the Yuan dynasty. It continued to be controlled by Imperial China with brief European occupations by the Dutch (1622–1624) and French (1885), until it was ceded to the Japanese Empire in 1895. Since the end of World War II, Penghu has been governed by the Republic of China (ROC). Under the terms of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the subsequent Taiwan Relations Act between the ROC and the United States, Penghu is defined and geographically acknowledged as part of Taiwan.
Penghu Islands rely solely on sea and air transportation, with air transport taking a significant part for outside access. The islands are served by three local domestic airports: Penghu Airport, Qimei Airport, and Wang-an Airport. The Penghu National Scenic Area comprises most of the islands and islets of the archipelago, it is also renowned for its unique natural feature of columnar basalt landscape. Tourism is one of the main sources of income to the county.
Name
The "Penghu" islands were mentioned in a series of poems during the Tang dynasty (618–907). During the Song dynasty (960–1279), it was mentioned that during the Tang period, "Pinghu" barbarians from beyond Quanzhou laid siege to Fuzhou, now the capital of Fujian Province. In 1171, the poet Lou Yue described a place across the sea from Quanzhou, identified as Penghu, that had thousands of sandbars called "Pinghu" (flat lake) because of the "encircling shape of its inner coastline". Song sources describe migrants from Fujian cultivating land on Pinghu. In 1225, the Song historian Zhao Rukuo called the islands attached to Jinjiang County "Penghu". In 1227, Wang Xiangzhi described Penghu as a group of 36 islands in an "outlying region" which took three days to reach by sailing from Jinjiang. In the Southern Min language, both Pinghu and Penghu are pronounced similarly, and scholars in Taiwan believe them to be the same place. In Southern Min it is pronounced Phêⁿ-ô·.
According to official Penghu County Chronicle, Penghu's original name had been "Pinghu"(平湖), but as "Ping"(平) sounded similar to "Peng"(彭) in Hokkien, "Pinghu"(平湖) was also written as "Penghu"(彭湖), and ultimately upon consensus, it is written as "Penghu"(澎湖).
The name "Pescadores" comes from the Portuguese name Ilhas dos Pescadores ("Fishermen Islands"). The European Portuguese pronunciation is but, in English, it is typically closer to . The islands have also been called Pehoe from the Minnan name Phêⁿ-ô·.
History
Prehistory
Penghu 1, a fossil jaw (mandible) dating to the Middle or Late Pleistocene that belonged to a member of an extinct hominin species, possibly a Denisovan, was discovered in the Penghu Channel .
Finds of fine red cord-marked pottery at Guoye, Huxi, indicate that Penghu was visited by Austronesians from southwestern Taiwan around 5,000 years ago, though not settled permanently.
Song dynasty
Han Chinese from southern Fujian began to establish fishing communities on the islands in the 9th and 10th centuries, and representatives were intermittently stationed there by the Southern Song and Yuan governments from . Chinese fishermen had settled on the Penghu Islands by 1171, when a group of "Bisheye" bandits with dark skin speaking a foreign language landed on Penghu and plundered the fields planted by Chinese migrants. The Song government sent soldiers after them and from that time on, Song patrols regularly visited Penghu in the spring and summer. A local official, Wang Dayou, had houses built on Penghu and stationed troops there to prevent depredations from the Bisheye. Coins dating to the Xining (1068-1077) and Zhenghe (1111-1117) reign periods as well as many Song pottery and porcelain shards have been unearthed in Penghu.
In 1225, the Book of Barbarian Nations anecdotally indicated that Penghu was attached to Jinjiang, Quanzhou Prefecture. A group of Quanzhou immigrants lived on Penghu.