Cimei is located at 23°16′N 119°40′E, about 29 nautical miles (53.7 km) from Makung

Makung

Makung is the county seat of Penghu, in Taiwan Province, Taiwan . Makung is on the western part of the main Penghu Island....

, 48 nautical miles (88.9 km) west of Tainan and 58 nautical miles (107.4 km) north of Kaohsiung

Kaohsiung

Kaohsiung is a city located in southwestern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on the west. Kaohsiung, officially named Kaohsiung City, is divided into thirty-eight districts. The city is one of five special municipalities of the Republic of China...

, Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. The unhabitated Mao Yu and Cau Yu west of Cimei are also under its governance. Cimei is 6.99 square km in area with a coastline of 14.4 kilometers and with about 3,214 people. Composed mostly of basalt formations, Cimei ranks the fifth largest island in the Penghu Archipelago.

Name

The name of Cimei originally came from a historical story of the Ming Dynasty

Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...

, in which seven women had to commit suicide when Japanese pirates raided the island. Cimei was named in 1949, as a replacement of its original name "Da-Yu", to commemorate the seven women and their tombs. It now also connotes seven beautiful things as the island's tourist attractions. They are the scenery, the sea water, local products, people's hearts, the geology, the architecture, and the history as indications of the seven beautiful characteristics of Cimei island.

See also

• List of islands of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
• Pescadores Islands (澎湖群島)
• Wang-an (望安)

External links

• Cimei Township Government website
• The location of Cimei in Penghu County