About Minguo.tw
Minguo.tw is a free reference for Taiwan’s Republic of China (Minguo) calendar. I’m Angus Chen, and I created and independently maintain the site from Taiwan.
Why this site exists
I’m Taiwanese-American, born and raised in the United States. Later in life, I moved back to Taiwan to live and work. It felt like both a return and a new beginning, and the cultural adjustment was larger than I expected.
Taiwan is a predominantly Chinese-speaking culture with its own rhythms and conventions. Language was only part of the challenge. Dates, place names, addresses, paperwork and the everyday assumptions that everyone around you already understands can be surprisingly difficult when you first arrive.
Dates were the one that kept catching me out. My residence permit showed an expiry of 115/07/29 and I read it as 2015. Bank forms wanted the year written a way I had never seen. Each time, the answer was simple once someone explained it, and almost impossible to find written down in English.
Over time, I began writing down what I learned. I built Minguo.tw to share those explanations with other people navigating the same adjustment — new residents, overseas Taiwanese returning home, and anyone trying to make sense of Taiwan’s dates and documents. It is the reference I wish I had when I first arrived.
What is here
- A ROC year converter covering 1883–2031, including the pre-1912 “before ROC” range and Qing and Japanese era names
- A generator for the formal written date form used on Taiwanese paperwork (中華民國一一五年七月二十九日)
- A lunar calendar converter covering 1900–2100 with leap months
- Public holiday calendars for Taiwan, and era converters for Japan, Korea and Thailand
- Guides on reading dates on residence permits, household registers and other documents
How the numbers are produced
Nothing on this site is hand-typed from memory. ROC conversion is arithmetic and is exact. Lunar dates and ganzhi come from a calendar engine covering 1900–2100, and its output has been checked against independently known values — Lunar New Year dates, ganzhi and zodiac animals for 1988, 1996, 2000, 2012, 2020, 2024 and 2027 all match. ROC conversions have been checked against the Ministry of the Interior's official ROC–Western comparison table.
Where a figure is set by government announcement rather than by calculation — the exact public holiday schedule, for instance, including make-up working days — it is labelled as provisional, because those are confirmed year by year and can change.
What this site is not
It is an unofficial reference. It is not affiliated with any government agency, and it is not legal, immigration or tax advice. For anything that affects your legal status, rely on the authority that issued your document. If you find something wrong here, please tell me — corrections are the most useful message I receive.
Get in touch
Corrections, questions, ideas and partnership enquiries are all welcome: admin@minguo.tw. There is more on the contact page.