Taiwan's Religious Faith: An Empire of Belief That Grew from Fear

30-second overview: Taiwan has approximately 15,000 registered religious buildings — more than the roughly 13,000 convenience stores on the island. The most numerous are not, as most people assume, Mazu temples (approximately 672), but Wang Ye temples (approximately 1,330) — deities that originated from the fear of plague, dispatched on plague-expelling "king boats." Inside a single temple, you might see the Buddhist Guanyin, the Taoist Jade Emperor, and the folk-religion Earth God sharing incense. Every lunar third month, over a million people follow the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage for nine days and eight nights across 340 kilometers. In 2014, Xingtian Temple — visited by six million people annually — removed all its incense burners, becoming the first major temple in Taiwan to ban incense. The 2025 Freedom House global freedom report ranked Taiwan second in Asia with a score of 94. This island's faith has never been a cloud-level affair — it is right there at the mouth of your alleyway, and it began the moment 17th-century military migrants stepped off their boats.

In 1995, a man named Liao Wu-chih (廖武治) stood on the roof of Dalongdong Baoan Temple (大龍峒保安宮) in Taipei, watching a jiannian master press colored glass fragments back into their two-hundred-year-old positions¹. Baoan Temple was built in 1804, a temple where immigrants from Tong'an brought their faith in Baosheng Dadi (保生大帝, the God of Medicine) across the strait. Through Japanese rule, the postwar era, and urban expansion, by the 1990s it had fallen into disrepair. Taiwan's government designated it a Grade 2 historic monument in 1985 — then did nothing after listing it.

Liao decided to raise the money himself. Seven years, not a single cent from the government, insisting on original techniques and original materials². He tracked down jiannian, stone-carving, wood-engraving, and traditional-painting masters from across Taiwan — some with skills nearly extinct. "It's easy to restore an old temple with new materials," he later said in an interview, "but that's not restoration — it's renovation."

In 2003, Baoan Temple received the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation — the first temple in Taiwan to do so³. The judges wrote: "A model for community-based restoration." (A model for community-based restoration.)

This story is actually a microcosm of the whole island's religious history: the government steps back, the people step forward; a craft nearly severed, yet someone insists on passing it down; the temple is not just a temple, it is a container for a city's memory. To understand why this island grew the world's highest density of temples, we need to go back more than three hundred years — to those people who bound deity statues to their bodies and gambled their lives crossing the Black Ditch.

Why This Island Has Fifteen Thousand Temples

According to Ministry of Interior statistics, in 2024 Taiwan had approximately 15,000 registered religious buildings⁴ — more than the roughly 13,000 convenience stores on the island⁵. Tainan is the city with the highest temple density in Taiwan; by 2015 it had 1,641⁶.

But behind this number is a contrast most people have not noticed: the most numerous are not Mazu temples — they are Wang Ye temples.

The Academia Sinica's "Taiwan Temple Database" cross-referenced Ministry of Interior religious registrations and found approximately 1,330 Wang Ye faith temples versus approximately 672 Mazu temples — Wang Ye temples outnumbering Mazu temples by nearly double⁷. "Wang Ye worship is especially prevalent in southern Taiwan, on par with Mazu worship in central Taiwan, hence the popular saying: 'Wang Ye in the south, Mazu in the center' — also called 'Third Month Mazu Frenzy, Fourth Month Wang Ye Birthday.'"⁸

What deity is Wang Ye? The original function was plague deity. "Wang Ye worship originated in the early plague-expelling king boats of China's southeastern coast, drifting from the Xiamen and Quanzhou area to the southwestern coastal areas of Taiwan."⁹ Coastal residents would push a wooden boat loaded with offerings — a materialized embodiment of plague — out to sea, hoping the plague would depart with the vessel. King boats that drifted to Taiwan were picked up by locals, temples were built, and the plague deity was transformed into a guardian deity.

📝 Curator's Note: The island's most numerous deity originated from fear of plague. This was not a compassionate choice — it was the survival reflex of an immigrant society with limited medical care, entrusting the uncontrollable to an imaginable personality. When disease later became manageable, Wang Ye did not disappear; he simply changed jobs — from plague to exorcism, safety, and protection. Gods don't die; they just find new work.

Mazu follows the same logic. Mazu was originally a sea deity of Song-dynasty Fujian's Meizhou, whose function was to protect fishermen heading out to sea. In the 17th century, military migrants crossing the Black Ditch (the Taiwan Strait) bound Mazu statues to their ship masts. The ships arrived, and so did the deity. But the Mazu on the island quickly expanded her functions: from sea deity to treating illness, exorcism, helping with fertility, protecting crops, assisting with examinations, blessing business — managing everything. A sea deity with a single function became the island's all-purpose mother deity.

Earth God (土地公) followed the same path. Originally a field-edge deity of agricultural society, managing the harvest of one patch of land; after urbanization, his function shifted to commerce. Certain Earth God temples in Taipei's Xinyi District are considered "particularly good at helping people make money" and attract throngs of worshippers¹⁰. Deities' functions evolve with social structure.

340 Kilometers, Nine Days and Eight Nights

Every lunar third month, the whole island is taken over by a religious march.

The Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage (大甲媽祖遶境進香), in 2025, departed from Zhenlan Temple at 10:45 PM on April 4 and returned on April 13 — nine days and eight nights, crossing twenty-one townships in four counties and cities (Taichung, Changhua, Yunlin, and Chiayi), visiting nearly a hundred temples, for a total journey of 340 kilometers¹¹. Discovery Channel in 2004 listed it as one of the world's three great religious events¹². In 2009, UNESCO inscribed Mazu beliefs and customs on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity¹³.

One feature of walking is particularly special: the spontaneous supply stations along the route. Not organized by the temple — set up spontaneously by residents along the way. Free rice noodles, sesame oil chicken, massages, painkillers, razors, sanitary products, sports drinks. "Mazu walks, everyone helps."¹⁴ An elderly grandmother might save up money all year just to be able to cook a pot of soup large enough for a hundred people during those few days. She doesn't know these pilgrims; the pilgrims don't know her — but Mazu knows all of them.

Even more remarkable is the tradition of the palanquin turning on its own. The palanquin does not go where bearers carry it — it is "people following Mazu." When the palanquin suddenly turns sharply, sprints, or reverses, the bearers can only follow; they cannot resist¹⁵. This is folk belief's most physical moment: the deity is not in the sky, the deity is in the wood, and the wood moves by itself.

In recent years, the pilgrimage has grown increasingly complex. In 2016, "Mazu culture" was written into China's "13th Five-Year Plan" and the "Belt and Road Initiative"; in 2018, a Fujian delegation proposed establishing a national-level leadership institution composed of the United Front Work Department, the Taiwan Affairs Office, the Ministry of Culture, and the Fujian Provincial Party Committee to promote Mazu cultural development¹⁶. The Chinese Communist Party packages Mazu as "Goddess of Peace in the Taiwan Strait," funding cross-strait pilgrimage groups. The problem is that Taiwan's Mazu devotees mostly just want to worship Mazu — they don't want to be represented by anyone. "Is Mazu a united-front weapon?" — there is no consensus within the pilgrimage procession.

📝 Curator's Note: Mazu in Taiwan is simultaneously religion, culture, tourism, and politics. China wants to turn her into a symbol of "both sides belonging to one China." Taiwan's devotees use an annual million-person walk to turn her into "our island's own deity." One deity can simultaneously be several things; in Taiwan this is not contradiction — it is tacit understanding.

Three Faiths Under One Roof

Walk into Taipei's Wanhua Longshan Temple (艋舺龍山寺) and you will see a scene difficult for outsiders to comprehend: the main hall enshrines the Buddhist Guanyin (觀世音菩薩); in the rear hall, one side has Mazu (Tianshang Shengmu, Taoist/folk belief) and the other side has Wenchang Dijun (文昌帝君, Taoist, overseer of examination luck); in the side halls are the Old Man Under the Moon (月下老人, folk belief, overseeing romantic fate), the Goddess of Childbirth (註生娘娘), and the Holy Emperor Guan (關聖帝君, martial god of wealth)¹⁷. One temple, at least seven deities, belonging to three different religious systems. Taiwanese people don't find this contradictory.

This is what is most special about Taiwanese faith: the unity of three religions is not a philosophy — it is a spatial configuration. Buddhists, Taoists, and folk believers enter the same temple, each worshipping their own deities, without looking at each other askance. A 2019 Academia Sinica survey also presents this mixture: 49.3% of the public follows traditional folk religion, 14% Buddhism, 12.4% Taoism, 5.5% Protestantism, 2.1% Yiguandao, and 1.3% Catholicism¹⁸. But in practice, a single person might simultaneously worship Mazu, pray to Guanyin, and visit the Earth God temple at festivals — this is not apostasy, it is daily life.

How did this mixing come about? The historical context is that 17th-century and later migrants across the strait brought their hometown deities with them, and island space was limited; there weren't enough separate temples to be built, so deities were placed together. Over time, functional specialization rather than sectarian separation became the dominant logic: for examination luck, find Wenchang; for romantic fate, find the Moon Elder; for business, find Guan Gong; for safety, find Mazu; for fertility, find the Goddess of Childbirth — each deity has a specialty, and worshippers pray according to their needs, not their sectarian identity.

One postwar event made this mixture even more explicit. On May 31, 1945, American bombs hit Longshan Temple's main hall, but the Guanyin statue inside was found completely intact in the rubble¹⁹. At the time, folk believers, Buddhists, and Taoists who had worshipped that Guanyin all took it as a miracle. The deity statue made no religious distinctions, and neither did the miracle.

📝 Curator's Note: Westerners often ask "what religion do Taiwanese people actually follow?" — the question itself is wrong, because it presupposes "a person can only follow one religion." But for Taiwanese people, "what you believe" and "what you worship" are two different things. You might call yourself a Buddhist your whole life, while also worshipping the Earth God on the second day of every lunar New Year when you visit your parents' home, visiting Wenchang before exams, and visiting Guan Gong when running a business. This is not disloyalty — it is division of labor.

From Ban to Legal: Yiguandao's 34-Year Journey

In 1953, the Nationalist government issued an order to ban Yiguandao (一貫道) on grounds of "involving superstition and disturbing local public order"²⁰. This religion originating in China's Shandong, which combined elements of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, went underground in Taiwan and was maintained through word of mouth; its followers only increased during the thirty-four years.

In 1987 — the same year Taiwan lifted martial law — forty members of the Legislative Yuan jointly called on the government to legalize Yiguandao. In March 1988, the "ROC Yiguandao General Assembly" was established²¹. Yiguandao became the first religion in postwar Taiwan to transition from illegal to legal — the lobbying had even begun a few months before martial law was officially lifted on July 15, 1987. As of March 2018, there were approximately 800,000 documented Yiguandao followers in Taiwan²².

Yiguandao's characteristics are strict vegetarianism, unity of three religions, and global expansion. It has sanctuaries in more than 80 countries²³, and advocates distinctive eschatological views such as "three-period tribulation" and "three Buddhas responding to destiny." But for outsiders, the most easily understood characteristic is: Yiguandao sanctuary vegetarian food is excellent — fully vegetarian, free, and they won't pressure you to join.

📝 Curator's Note: Yiguandao's history is a microcosm of Taiwan's religious liberalization. A religion banned by the state for thirty-four years did not disappear — instead it accumulated grassroots mobilization energy during its underground period. It became a litmus test for political reform in the period before martial law ended: "whether this underground religion can be legalized" became a gauge of the government's openness. Today Yiguandao is already one of the mainstream religions — but what it taught Taiwan is not just religion, but the fact that "political suppression cannot kill faith."

Postwar Emergence: The Four Great Buddhist Mountain Orders

If Wang Ye and Mazu represent the fears of migrants who crossed the strait, the new Buddhism represents a different need in postwar Taiwanese society — after urbanization, economic growth, and the spread of education, people no longer needed only safety and wealth: they also needed meaning.

The four great Buddhist mountain orders rose in this context:

• Tzu Chi Foundation (慈濟基金會, 1966, Hualien): Dharma Master Cheng Yen started with thirty housewives each "saving half a NT dollar daily"²⁴. Today Tzu Chi has volunteers in 68 countries and provides relief in 136 countries²⁵. "For Buddhism, for all sentient beings" is Tzu Chi's core spirit.
• Fo Guang Shan (佛光山, 1967, Dashu, Kaohsiung): Dharma Master Hsing Yun broke ground in Dashu's bamboo grove, advocating "Humanistic Buddhism" — the dharma is not in mountain forests, it is in the human realm. He subsequently established over 300 monasteries and temples worldwide, 16 Buddhist colleges, and founded Nanhua University, Fo Guang University, and the Buddha Museum²⁶. Hsing Yun entered nirvana on February 5, 2023 at 5 PM in Fo Guang Shan's Chuandeng Tower, at the venerable age of 97²⁷.
• Dharma Drum Mountain (法鼓山, 1989, Jinshan): Founded by Dharma Master Sheng Yen. In 1990, he proclaimed "Elevating the quality of human beings, building a pure land in the human realm"; in 1992, he put forward the concept of "Spiritual Ecology" (心靈環保)²⁸ — extending environmental protection from the material to the spiritual dimension. This is one of the important cultural coinages of postwar Taiwan.
• Chung Tai Chan Monastery (中台禪寺, Puli): Venerable Master Wei Chueh established Lingquan Temple in 1987 on the basis of an existing smaller temple²⁹. The formal completion of Chung Tai Chan Monastery was September 1, 2001 — "3 years of planning and 7 years of construction beginning from 1992"³⁰ — more than thirty years behind the other three great orders. This generational gap also shaped a Chan Buddhism-focused path very different from the other three. Venerable Master Wei Chueh entered nirvana on April 8, 2016, at the age of 90.

The four great orders each have different political-religious relationship strategies: Tzu Chi "does not discuss politics, only does charity"; the Presbyterian Church "actively participates in democratic transition"; Fo Guang Shan "participates moderately, maintaining dialogue with both sides of the strait." As religious organizations, they can span a very wide spectrum.

Dr. Maxwell's Medical Bag: 160 Years of Christianity in Taiwan

On May 28, 1865, Scottish Presbyterian Church missionary Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell landed in Dagou (今高雄, today's Kaohsiung) in southern Taiwan, and on June 16 began establishing a congregation and providing medical services in a house on Kansei Street outside the west gate of the Taiwan prefectural seat³¹. This was the starting point of Protestant Christianity in Taiwan.

Seven years later, on March 7, 1872, George Leslie Mackay of the Canadian Presbyterian Church landed at Tamsui, opening northern evangelization³². The Oxford College established by Mackay at Tamsui in 1882 was one of the prototypes of modern education in Taiwan. Mackay Hospital, Changrong Middle School, Tamkang Middle School, Aletheia University — these institutions still operating today were all foundations laid by the Presbyterian Church in the late 19th century.

The Presbyterian Church differs from other religions in one particular way: it directly intervenes in politics. On August 16, 1977, Taiwan's Presbyterian Church (台灣基督長老教會) issued its "Declaration on Human Rights," publicly calling on the government to "take effective measures to make Taiwan a new and independent nation"³³. Taiwan was still under martial law at the time, and publicly advocating independence carried the risk of imprisonment. The Presbyterian Church became one of the few local civic organizations that could speak publicly before martial law ended.

Catholicism also left its own mark — Fu Jen Catholic University, early collaboration with Mackay Hospital, and the PIME missionaries' long-term work in indigenous communities in Taitung³⁴. These institutions are smaller in scale than the four great Buddhist orders, but their contributions to remote-area medical care, education, and social welfare have been far-reaching.

📝 Curator's Note: In 160 years, Christianity in Taiwan has never been a majority religion (about 5-6% of the population), yet its influence far exceeds its numbers. It introduced modern education, modern medicine, women's education, indigenous language documentation, the Peh-oe-ji romanization movement, and the discourse on human rights — none of these were things that happened inside the main hall; they were the foundational infrastructure of the whole society. A religion's impact is not measured by how many people worship its deities, but by how much of what the society previously lacked it brought into being.

Xingtian Temple Removes Its Incense Burners: When Piety Meets PM2.5

At 3 AM on August 26, 2014, Xingtian Temple dispatched workers to remove the two large incense burners in front of the main hall and fifteen offering tables³⁵. Taiwan's first major temple with six million annual visitors — enshrining the Holy Emperor Guan (關聖帝君) — announced a ban on incense. This was the largest temple reform in half a century³⁶.

The context for the decision: the Environmental Protection Administration estimated annual burning of joss paper at 90,000 to 220,000 tonnes; PM2.5 near temples can reach 45 μg/m³ — three times the national standard³⁷. Dharma Drum Mountain was even more radical — replacing the burning of paper money outright with large screens displaying footage of paper money burning³⁸.

But reactions split sharply³⁹. The traditional camp argued that "without incense there is no efficacy," and "how will the deity know you've come if they can't smell the incense?" Young worshippers and environmentalists responded: "Finally someone changed it." The numbers a year later were interesting: Xingtian Temple's visitor numbers did not decline — they actually increased — more families with children, more young people who don't smoke, more middle-aged and elderly visitors with allergies.

This event exposed a fundamental question: the form and the content of religious ritual can be separated. Incense smoke is not religion itself — it is religion's physical manifestation. Manifestation can change; the deity remains. Once people accept this, temple reform becomes possible.

Fortune Sticks, Temple Management Committees, and an Island's Practice of Democracy

Finally, two matters that fewer people notice.

The first is fortune sticks (籤詩). Taiwan's temple fortune-stick system is actually one of the world's earliest "free psychological counseling systems." A heartbroken young person, a middle-aged person who has lost their job, an elderly person who is ill — any of them can walk into a temple, shake a bamboo cannister, draw out a four-line poem, and chat with a volunteer interpreter. The fortune poem itself may be ambiguous, but the process of interpretation involves listening, being listened to, being advised. No registration fee, no appointment needed⁴⁰.

The second is temple management committees (廟管會). Taiwan's temple management committee system — one person, one vote to elect a chair, vice chair, and secretary-general — is actually a grassroots democratic practice that already existed in Qing-dynasty Taiwan⁴¹. Earlier than legislatures, earlier than political parties, earlier than household registration systems. A small temple might manage NT$10 million in donations, a piece of land, and a group of worshippers — all requiring democratic mechanisms to operate. Of course, this also means that temple politics can be quite dark — factional infighting, vote-buying, and entanglement with local politics are not uncommon⁴². But it at least leaves behind one fact: Taiwanese people didn't start voting in 1996 — they learned the thing hundreds of years ago, in that small temple at the mouth of their alley.

From Fear to Freedom

Return to the contrast at the opening: the island with the world's highest temple density and Asia's second-ranked religious freedom has, as its two most numerous faiths, beliefs whose historical origins are both connected to plague and death.

The 2025 Freedom House global freedom report ranked Taiwan second in Asia with a score of 94 (second only to Japan)⁴³. This ranking includes multiple dimensions: religious freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and more. Contrasted with three hundred years ago — those military migrants who bound deity statues to their ships and gambled their lives crossing the strait — they probably could not have imagined that their descendants would live on an island like this: free to believe any religion, free not to believe any religion, free to worship all three religions or to worship none at all.

Baoan Temple, which Liao Wu-chih restored, now hosts an annual Baosheng Cultural Festival, combining art exhibitions, concerts, and academic symposia⁴⁴. A temple founded two hundred years ago when immigrants from Tong'an brought their faith in Baosheng Dadi has today become one of Taipei's cultural centers. The deity statues remain, but a jazz band also performs nearby.

This island's history of faith — from the moment 17th-century military migrants stepped off their boats, all the way to the incense-banned temple of 2025, spiritual ecology, Humanistic Buddhism, and Freedom House's second place ranking — has never been interrupted. Each era adds new layers atop the old. Wang Ye changed from plague deity to safety deity; Mazu changed from sea deity to all-purpose deity; Earth God changed from field-edge deity to commercial deity. Gods don't die; gods change jobs.

Those 17th-century fears of crossing the strait — fear of the Black Ditch, fear of plague, fear of armed conflict, fear of natural disaster — did not truly disappear. They were transformed into 15,000 temples, a million-person nine-day pilgrimage on foot, the four great orders' volunteers spanning the world, the Presbyterian Church's insistence on speaking its human rights declaration, and Yiguandao's thirty-four-year underground journey to legalization.

Fear never disappeared — it just grew into the shape of faith.

And that faith ultimately freed the island.

Further Reading

• Taiwan Overseas Diaspora and Diaspora Communities — how Mazu, Wang Ye, and Earth God set sail again with migrants to the whole world
• Hakka Culture and Language — Yi Min Ye (義民爺) worship is the most distinctive religious practice of the Hakka community in Taiwan
• Social Movements in Taiwan During the Japanese Colonial Period — how the colonial government managed religion, and how religion in turn resisted the colonial government
• The February 28 Incident — the role of religious circles (especially the Presbyterian Church) in Taiwan's political transition
• Jiang Wei-shui — physician revolutionary, and his dialogue with religious leaders of the same era

References