Taiwan is approximately 36,000 square kilometers in area — slightly smaller than the Netherlands, slightly larger than Belgium, and roughly equivalent to the U.S. state of Maryland.

Its population is approximately 23-24 million. By land area, Taiwan ranks roughly 137th in the world. By population, it is roughly the 56th most populous polity.

By any conventional measure of geographic or demographic significance, Taiwan would not be among the most consequential places on the planet. By the actual measure that matters in 2024 — strategic position in critical supply chains, geographic location at the inflection point of two great powers, the unsettled question of its political relationship with the People's Republic of China — Taiwan is arguably the most strategically consequential geography in the world economy. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), founded in Hsinchu in 1987, manufactures a substantial majority of the world's most advanced semiconductor chips.