Taoyuan County will be given special municipality status on December 25. The new Taoyuan City will become Taiwan’s sixth special municipality. Taoyuan will join the ranks of Taipei, New Taipei, Keelung, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung as one of Taiwan’s top-ranking administrative divisions.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) politician Cheng Wen-tsan is slated to become the newly upgraded municipality’s first ever mayor. Local authorities promise that the shift from county to city will be smooth, and will mostly involve the formal reclassification of local townships and villages.