Introduction | The Archives of the Taiwan Government under Japanese Rule contains original documents from the various administrative agencies and organizations of Taiwan dating back 60 to over 100 years. The collection consists of 13,146 volumes with around 5.7 million pages. Taiwan Historica is working together with Academia Sinica to scan and digitalize documents below A3 size from this collection. The plan for the future is to scan diagrams and annotations above A3 in size. The contents of these contents include civil engineering blueprints, architectural plans, maps, mining maps, and topographical maps.
The time period covered by the files can be divided into the Meiji, Taisho and Showa periods. These are compilations based on the document regulations of each period as established by the Taiwan Sotokufu. Generally, out of all three periods, most of the files are from the Meiji period, the contents are calligraphic work on Mino paper. "Database of Taiwan Sotokufu" holds numerous documents and has been divided according to categories and subjects. But due to the difference in time period, each document can only be searched using the document regulations of that particular period. When the reorganization and compilation for the document files was underway, the main concern was for work references and not on research by future generations or ease of access. The reader need to first understand the regulations of each period in order to understand the content and subject of each document. Also, back then documents saved for reference were only kept for 5 years or 1 year, and these have all nearly been destroyed. The documents of the Sotokufu inner cabinet and section chief level executive documents were kept separately, but after the war, the whereabouts of these files was lost. These are the limitations faced by today's readers when studying this archive collection.
For viewing or copying of the files, please see the Taiwan Historica Digital Archives' copying regulations (http://www.th.gov.tw/web/download.php?g=L012). |