zhTW

zhTW is a locale designation used for Traditional Chinese as written and used in Taiwan. It corresponds to the zh-TW tag in the IETF language code system and signals not only the script (Traditional Chinese) but region-specific conventions, vocabulary, and formatting typically associated with Taiwan.

The writing system in zhTW relies on Traditional Chinese characters, in contrast to Simplified Chinese used in Mainland China. Taiwan also has regional vocabulary and usage patterns for Mandarin, often referred to as Guoyu. While the spoken language in Taiwan is primarily Mandarin, zhTW covers the written form used in government, education, media, and everyday communication within Taiwan.

Encoding and typography have evolved from historical standards such as Big5 to modern Unicode. Traditional Chinese fonts commonly used in Taiwan include MingLiU and PMingLiU, with contemporary systems also supporting Noto Sans TC and other Unicode-based families. Web and software localization for zhTW typically prefer UTF-8 and regionally appropriate fonts to ensure correct rendering of characters and punctuation.

In software and web contexts, zhTW is used to tailor language, spellings, and date and number formats to Taiwan conventions. It is distinct from zh-CN (Simplified Chinese for Mainland China) and zh-HK (Traditional Chinese for Hong Kong), though all share the Traditional script in zhTW and zh-Hant as broader script variants. When creating content or software for Taiwan audiences, using lang="zh-TW" (or zh-Hant-TW in some tag schemes) helps ensure proper localization and user experience.