Tainan County is situated in the center of the largest plain-Chianan Plain-in southwest Taiwan. Located at the foot of a hill and next to the sea, TainanCounty rises high in the east and becomes flat in the west. It is sited in the front area of the CentralRange to the east and borders the Taiwan Strait to the west. It adjoins ChiayiCounty in its north and neighbors TainanCity and KaohsiungCounty in the south. With a total area of 2,016 square kilometers, Tainan is the ninth largest county in Taiwan. However, it is the largest county in terms of an arable area of more than 90,000 acres and the eighth largest county in terms of the population of 1.1 million.

Tainan County is also the first area to be brought under cultivation in Taiwan. As early as 400 years ago, the Dutch occupied a beachhead in Anping of Tainan. It is the first foothold established as a result of the practice of colonialism and imperialism by the West. Then, some 360 years ago, one of the Ming Dynasty loyalists, Cheng Cheng-kung, drove away the Dutch and successfully opened up Taiwan to greater numbers of Chinese settlers. Therefore, Tainan could be said to have recorded the beginning of Taiwan's history.

Tainan County is located in the south of the Nortg Tropic of Cancer. It is a subtropical area and has abundant agricultural products. Main crops include rice, sugar cane, and grains. Special local products are many and diverse. TainanCounty has larger areas of paddy fields, dry farmland, fishing fields, salt fields, lotus fields, and water caltrop fields than any other county in Taiwan.

Before Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China in 1945, TainanCounty was divided into the northern and southern areas by TsengwenRiver. The northern area included Hsinying, Peimen, and Tsengwen districts. The southern area encompassed Hsinhua and Hsinfeng districts. After Taiwan's retrocession, TainanCounty was reorganized into 31 rural townships, urban townships, and county municipalities as well as 533 villages and boroughs.

The Tainan County Government is located at Hsinying in the northern area. Yungkang in the southern area is the most populated district in TainanCounty as a result of prosperous industrial and commercial development.

Tainan used to be a typical agricultural county. Thanks to rapid commercial and industrial development, Tainan has become an industrial county with more than 7,000 factories. At present, there are Hsinying, Kuantien, Hsinshih, Yungkang, and Jente industrial areas in the county. It is expected that Tainan will transform into a high-tech county after the Tainan Science-based Industrial Park and the southern branch of the Industrial Technology Research Institute are set up there. By that time, Tainan's industrial and economic structures will be thoroughly transformed. Therefore, it is very clear that Tainan has a very promising future.

Tainan County has 169 primary schools, 43 junior high schools, 28 public and private senior high and vocational high schools, and 11 junior colleges and universities. Such renowned universities as NationalSunYat-senUniversity, NationalCentralUniversity, and NationalTainanTeachers College will set up branches in TainanCounty in the near future.

There are a great number of temples in TainanCounty. Most of the people in Tainan worship Wang Yeh, which historically refers to the brothers of the emperor and in present-day religion to a Taoist deity. This is why Tainan has more Wang Yeh Temples than any other type of temple. Famous scenic spots in Tainan include temples, seashores, lakes, and mountains. TainanCounty has more reservoirs than any other county in Taiwan, including Tsengwen, Paihe, Chienshanpei, Teyuanpei, Wushantou, Luliao, Hutoupei, Mirror, and Nanhua reservoirs. In addition to supplying water, these reservoirs are also famous asscenic areas.