The longstanding Chinese families settled in Taiwan consist of Fukienese and Cantonese who emigrated from the Chinese mainland during the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties. Those who originated from Fukien came mainly from the districts of Ch'Oan-chou and Chang-chou, while those from Kwangtung came mainly form Hui-chou and Ch'ao-chou.

Each of these families has retained its own associated location of origin and its own tmple name, in order to show its continuing affection for its original home on the mainland. For instance, the Huang clan has Chiang-hsia as its location of origin, and its temple name is the Chiang-hsia Temple. The location of origin of a clan surname'denotes the place where that surname first arose, and later generations of each clan enshrine that place name in their temple name for fear that their clan might lose its identity in the course of time. In addition, each family writes at the top of its spirit tablets and tombstones the name of the place from which their ancestors originally came.

The Chinese inhabitants of Taiwan include those with single surnames and those with double-barrelled surnames, and there are total of 1,027 surnames in all, over 800/o of which are quite rare. The hundred most com- mon surnames are the following: Ch'en, Lin, Huang, Chang, Li, Wu, Wang, Liu, Ts'ai, Yang, HsO, Cheng, Hsieh, Kuo, Hung, Ch'iu, Tseng, Liao, Lai, HsO (a different character from the preceding), Chou, Yeh, Su, Chuang, Chiang, Lo, Ho, Hsiao, Lo, Kao, P'an, Chien, Chu, Chan, Yu, P'eng, Chung, Shih, Shen, Hu, YO, Lu, Yen, K'o, Liand, Chao, Weng, Wei, Sun, Tai, Fang, Sung, Fan, Teng, Wen, Fu, Hou, HsOeh, Chung, Ting Ts'ao, Lan, Lien, Chuo, Ma, Shih (a different character from the preceding), Chiang ( a different character from the preceding), Ku, Ou, Chi, Tung, T'ang, Yao, Ch'eng, Feng, T'ang (a dif- ferent character from the preceding), Tien, Wang (a different character from the preceding), Pai, Chiang (a different character from the preceding), Yu (a different character from the preceding), Tsou, Wu, Kung, Yen (a different character from the preceding), T'u, Juan, Han, Chin, Yoan, Li (a different character from the preceding), T'ung, Lu (a different character from the preceding), Liu (a different character form the preceding), Ch'ien, Hsia, Shao. The first ten surnames in this list cover at least 360/o of the population of Taiwan.

There is a saying in Taiwan to the effect that "The Ch'en's and the Lin's make up half the world". Every town, village and country district in Taiwan possesses old houses which belonged to the members of these two great clans, the biggest in Taiwan. Other clans with very large numbers of members are the Huang, Chang, Li, Wu and Wang clans. The registers and generalogies kept by each clan record the place of origin of the ancestors of each, and show that Taiwan has a close and inseparable ethnic affinity with the mainland of China.