Taipei leads the rise in average life expectancy

Taiwan’s average life expectancy climbed to 81.27 last year from 80.77 a year earlier, with Taipei recording the longest average at 83.98, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. Despite the year-on-year rise, Taiwan’s national average life expectancy had not yet returned to the pre-COVID-19 peak of 81.32 in 2020, the ministry said. However, it is higher than the global average of 73.5, it added. The number of deaths last year moved lower for the third consecutive year, as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic eased, down 1,674 from a year earlier to 199,639, the ministry said. The number of deaths aged 65 or older was 151,936 last year, accounting for 76.1 percent of the national total. The average crude death rate slid 0.005 percentage points from a year earlier to 0.885 percent, it said. The average life expectancy of women and men in Taiwan rose 0.45 years and 0.51 years from a year earlier to 84.75 and 77.93 respectively, the ministry said. Average life expectancy for women in Taiwan returned to the pre-COVID-19 peak of 84.74 in 2020, but the average among men did not return to 2020’s peak of 78.11, it said. The average for both women and men in Taiwan was higher than the global average of 76.2 years and 70.9 years respectively. Taipei led in average life expectancy, rising from 83.4 in 2024 to 83.98 last year, ahead of Hsinchu City (82.13 years) and New Taipei City (81.54 years). Taitung County had the lowest average life expectancy at 76.49 years. It was the only administrative area in Taiwan to report a figure below 77. Taipei also recorded the highest life expectancy of 86.74 years among women, ahead of Hsinchu City’s 85.2 years. The capital also had the highest average life expectancy of 81.1 years among men, followed by Hsinchu City at 79.1 years. Taitung reported the lowest average life expectancy of 81.54 years for women and 72.3 years for men, the data showed. The latest statistics about individual administrative areas excluded Kinmen County, which saw a large population outflow, and Lienchiang County, the ministry said. Japan will conduct tests of hypersonic missiles and other projectiles on Australian soil, the two countries’ defense ministers said yesterday as they deepened military cooperation, including with a codeveloped laser system. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said alongside his Japanese counterpart, Shinjiro Koizumi, in Canberra that the deal would see a “better and enhanced arrangement between Australia and Japan for Japan’s use of our missile ranges over the course of the next decade.” “We have spoken previously about Australia being able to provide strategic depth to Japan across a range of areas, but one of them is the use Ugandan immigration authorities have returned the passports of four Taiwanese after withholding the travel documents at Entebbe International Airport, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said yesterday. After hearing about the incident, the ministry immediately instructed its representative office in Somaliland, which is responsible for affairs involving Uganda, to closely monitor the situation and work with the Uganda Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce to communicate with the authorities there, Hsiao said. The passports were returned to their holders on Wednesday local time, he said. The incident followed an earlier incident in which Ugandan immigration officials withheld the passports of two Taiwanese at China has completed the first phase of construction on Antelope Reef (Lingyang Reef, 羚羊礁) in the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building an artificial island in the disputed South China Sea that analysts say will form part of its largest military base. Satellite images showed the reclaimed feature — which Taiwan also claims — in outline for the first time, with barges and dredgers having left after at least six months of work in the busy waterway. The completion shows the South China Sea as an increasingly militarized arena of competition between China and the US and its allies. “The northern part of A fire and subsequent explosion in a residential area in Tainan early yesterday injured 15 people and damaged 68 homes, the Tainan City Fire Bureau said. The bureau said it received a report at 1:12am yesterday that a pile of waste in a vacant lot in Annan District’s (安南) Haidian Road had caught fire and exploded, adding that it dispatched 144 firefighters and 53 firetrucks to battle the blaze and evacuate nearby residents. It took more than four hours to extinguish the fire, it said. The incident damaged 11 privately owned vehicles, as well as eight fire engines, one ambulance and two disaster