A county-controlled city (縣轄市) is one of the 32 cities in Taiwan Province of the Republic of China administered under one of the 16 counties of the Republic of China. On the same level as a ROC township, it is the lowest-level city of ROC, below provincial and direct-control municipality. A county-controlled city has urban villages (里) under it. In contrast, the counties under the People's Republic of China cannot administer cities.
As the criteria of a county-controlled city remains a population between 150,000 and 500,000 and advanced industry and transportation, the number of county-controlled cities will continue to increase by upgrading developed townships. The population criteria was 50,000 in the 1940s, and raised up to 10,000 in 1959, and then again in 1977 to the present level.
At first, in late January 1946, there were only two county-controlled cities: Hualien and Yilan, which were prefecture-controlled cities (州轄市) under the Japanese Occupation. Taipei County has the most county-controlled cities (10). In the table below, unless noted other, the new cities were originally towns that exceeded the 150,000 criteria.
{| border=1 cellpadding=5 |-bgcolor=lightblue ! Date !! Addition !! # |-------------------------------------------------- |August 16, 1950 || Chiayi (originally provincial city) || 3 |-------------------------------------------------- |December 1, 1951 || Hsinchu, Changhua, and Pintung (originally provincial cities) || 6 |-------------------------------------------------- | April 1, 1962 || Sanchong, Taipei || 7 |-------------------------------------------------- | July 1, 1962 || Chongli, Taoyuan || 8 |-------------------------------------------------- | January 25, 1971 || Taoyuan, Taoyuan || 9 |-------------------------------------------------- | July 1, 1972 || Banchiao and Fengshan, Taipei || 11 |-------------------------------------------------- | January 1, 1976 || Taitung, Taitung || 12 |-------------------------------------------------- | March 1, 1976 || Fengyuan, Taichung || 13 |-------------------------------------------------- | January 1, 1979 || Yonghe and Jhonghe, Taipei || 15 |-------------------------------------------------- | January 15, 1980 || Sinjhuang and Sindian, Taipei || 17 |-------------------------------------------------- | December 25, 1981|| All county seats (originally jhen-township) upgraded to county-controlled cities, namely,
- Miaoli, Miaoli
- Nantou, Nantou
- Douliou, Yunlin
- Sinying, Tainan
- Makung, Penghu
(originally siang-township
, county seat) || 24 |-------------------------------------------------- | May 1, 1993 || Yongkang, Tainan (originally siang-township) || 25 |-------------------------------------------------- | June 26, 1993 || Tucheng, Taipei || 26 |-------------------------------------------------- | November 1, 1993 || Dali, Taichung || 27 |-------------------------------------------------- | January 1, 1995 || Bade, Taoyuan || 28 |-------------------------------------------------- | August 1, 1996 || Pingyuan, Taichung || 29 |-------------------------------------------------- | October 6, 1997 || Lujhou, Taipei || 30 |-------------------------------------------------- | July 1, 1999 || Sijhih, Taipei || 31 |-------------------------------------------------- | October 4, 1999 || Shulin, Taipei || 32 |-------------------------------------------------- |}
Lienchiang and Kinmen Counties do not have any cities.
