“Passport issuance and return registries of Government-General of Taiwan” are official documents containing details of passports issued and recovered in accordance with management regulations under the passport system of Government-General of Taiwan during Japanese rule. These registries are first-hand historical records of overseas travels of Taiwanese during the Japanese colonial era and constitute an important part of the complete record of overseas travels of people in the Japanese Empire and its colonies before the Second World War.

With the objective of providing continuous support and service for academic research, ITH Archives has completed compiling the digitized and value-added database entitled “Taiwan Government-General Passport Issuance System”. It contains more than 200,000 records of application for passports by citizens in Taiwan for overseas travels between 1897 and 1942, and around 4,000 records of passports issued by the Japanese consulates in China from 1926 to 1944. The database can be accessed online via the Academia Sinica network and ITH Archives provides basic, advanced and extended search, post categorization, as well as passport browsing by piece and by year.

Those interested in the original collections of the “Taiwan Government-General Passport Issuance System” are welcome to visit the ITH Reading Room during opening hours.