Magong (POJ: Má-keng) is a county-administered city and seat of Penghu County, Taiwan. Magong City is located on Penghu's main island.
Magong (POJ: Má-keng) is a county-administered city and seat of Penghu County, Taiwan. Magong City is located on Penghu's main island.
Chinese folk religion comprises a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. This includes the veneration of shen ('spirits') and ancestors, and worship devoted to deities and immortals, who can be deities of places or natural phenomena, of human behaviour, or progenitors of family lineages. Stories surrounding these gods form a loose canon of Chinese mythology. By the Song dynasty (960–1279), these practices had been blended with Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist teachings to form the popular religious system which has lasted in many ways until the present day. The government of modern China generally tolerates popular religious organizations, but has suppressed or persecuted these that they fear would undermine social stability.
The People's Republic of China is officially an atheist state, but the Chinese government formally recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism are recognized separately), and Islam. Chinese folk religion, being a syncretism, the government does not consider it a religion because it has ambiguous boundaries and a poorly defined structure, which is why Taoism and Buddhism are recognized as the country's historical religions, but folk religion is considered part of China's cultural heritage.
The Penghu (/ˈpʌŋˈhuː/ PUNG-HOO, Hokkien POJ: Phîⁿ-ô͘ or Phêⁿ-ô͘ ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, about 50 kilometres (25 nautical miles) west of the main island of Taiwan across the Penghu Channel, covering an area of 141 km (54 sq mi). The archipelago collectively forms Penghu County. The largest city is Magong, on the largest island, which is also named Magong.
The Penghu islands first appear in the historical record in the Tang dynasty and were inhabited by Chinese people under the Southern Song dynasty, during which they were attached to Jinjiang County of Fujian. The archipelago was formally incorporated as an administrative unit of China in 1281 under Tong'an County of Jiangzhe Province in the Yuan dynasty. It continued to be controlled by Imperial China with brief European occupations by the Dutch Empire (1622–1624) and Second French colonial empire (1885), until it was ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895. Japan’s surrender in 1945 ended its colonial rule over the Islands, which has since then been governed by the Republic of China (ROC). Under the terms of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty and the subsequent Taiwan Relations Act between the ROC and the United States, Penghu is defined and geographically acknowledged as part of Taiwan.