Japanese Taiwan was the period of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands under Japanese rule between 1895 and 1945. Taiwan became a dependency of Japan in 1895 when the Qing dynasty of China ceded Taiwan Province in the Treaty of Shimonoseki after Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War.

Taiwan was Japan's first overseas colony and can be viewed as the first steps in implementing their "Southern Expansion Doctrine" of the late 19th century. Japanese rule of Taiwan ended after the surrender of Japan concluded World War II in August 1945, and the territory was placed under the control of the Republic of China (ROC).

The Taiwanese yen was the currency of Japanese Taiwan from 1895 to 1946. It was on a par with and circulated alongside the Japanese yen. The yen was subdivided into 100 sen until it was replaced by the Old Taiwan dollar in 1946, which in turn was replaced by the New Taiwan dollar in 1949.

In 1899, the Bank of Taiwan introduced 1 and 5 yen notes, followed by 50 yen notes in 1900 and 10 yen in 1901. 100 yen notes were introduced in 1937 and 1000 yen in 1945. The last notes issued were dated 1945.

The note depicted beside is a 1 Yen banknote of 1915. The obverse has a temple to right while the reverse depicts a Lighthouse and coastline. This blue and green note has Gold Yen in Chinese characters as watermark.

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia