Calculated from the population and area above; their reference dates may differ.
On a familiar scale
≈ 1.42 × Magong City (reference rung)
The closest rung on the Taiwan reference ladder; see the sources below.
Land per resident
9,270 m² of land per resident
The inverse of population density, from the same area and population figures.
The outline is fitted to this frame, not a map for measuring distances. Outlying islands may make the main landmass appear smaller.
Change the yardstick
Orchid Island is “how many times” what?
The multiples on this site default to Taiwan. Pick a place you know and the area, population and density are recalculated against it; your choice is remembered in this browser and carries to other pages.
Lanyu Township, Taitung County, at year-end 2025: 48.3892 km² of land and 5,220 registered residents, both from the same Ministry of the Interior table. The township covers Orchid Island together with the uninhabited Little Orchid Island (Jimagaod) offshore, so the outline drawn here — Orchid Island alone, about 45.8 km² — is roughly 5% smaller than the area figure.
Average administrative density does not describe population distribution in every neighborhood. Compare population definitions and reference dates alongside the numbers.
Place guide
How should this Orchid Island profile be read?
Orchid Island covers 48.3892 km² and had 5,220 registered residents at year-end 2025, about 108 people per km². It is the largest of Taiwan’s Pacific offshore islands and the least densely populated place in this dataset that anyone actually lives on.
One table, one date, both numbers
Area and population here are the Lanyu Township row of the Ministry of the Interior’s "Land area, households and population density by township and district", year-end 2025 (ROC 114). Taking both from one row removes the most common source of error on this site: an area published by one agency on one date divided by a population published by another on a different date. The density printed here, about 107.9 per km², reproduces the ministry’s own density column exactly, which is how the row was checked.
The source table marks this row with ※. That symbol flags a mountain indigenous township — Lanyu is one of thirty such townships and districts in the table, alongside Wulai, Alishan and Xiulin — and says nothing about the reliability of the figures. It is noted here because the mark was previously left unresolved when the Taiwan reference ladder was built, and an unexplained symbol beside a number is a reason not to use it.
The township is the island plus one uninhabited islet
Lanyu Township covers Orchid Island together with Little Orchid Island (Jimagaod), an uninhabited volcanic islet about 5 km to the south-east. The 48.3892 km² includes it; the outline drawn on this page does not, because the outline is the OpenStreetMap polygon for Orchid Island itself and measures about 45.8 km². That is the whole of the roughly 5% gap between the shape and the number, and it is disclosed rather than smoothed over, following the same rule used for Koh Samui and Penghu.
Everyone counted in the 5,220 lives on Orchid Island. So the density on this page is slightly conservative: dividing by the island alone would give about 114 per km² instead of 108. Neither figure changes the conclusion, which is that Orchid Island is emptier than any other inhabited place on this site.
What the average density does not say
Orchid Island is a volcanic island rising to 548 m at Mount Hongtou, with settlement confined to a narrow coastal shelf served by a single ring road. The six Tao (Yami) villages sit on that shelf; the interior is steep forest and carries almost nobody. An average spread over the whole 48 km² therefore understates how closely the inhabited ground is used, in the same way Hong Kong’s territory-wide average understates the density of the places people actually live.
Registered population is also not the number of people present. Orchid Island receives far more visitors in a year than it has residents, and ferry and flight capacity, not land, is what limits how many are there on any given day. Land area and registered population answer "how big" and "how many live here"; they do not answer "how busy is it".
Questions people ask
About Orchid Island’s area and population
How big is Orchid Island?
Orchid Island covers 48.4 km² (reference date 2025-12-31). On the Taiwan reference ladder: ≈ 1.42 × Magong City.
What is the population of Orchid Island?
5,220 as of 2025-12-31. The scope of that count is set out under “Scope and definitions” on this page.
What is the population density of Orchid Island?
About 107.9 people per km², derived from the area and population above, whose reference dates may differ. An administrative average does not describe how crowded any particular neighbourhood is.
What do these Orchid Island figures include?
Lanyu Township, Taitung County, at year-end 2025: 48.3892 km² of land and 5,220 registered residents, both from the same Ministry of the Interior table. The township covers Orchid Island together with the uninhabited Little Orchid Island (Jimagaod) offshore, so the outline drawn here — Orchid Island alone, about 45.8 km² — is roughly 5% smaller than the area figure.
What else is Orchid Island called?
Also written or known as Lanyu, Ponso no Tao, Botel Tobago. Every one of those names refers to the place measured on this page.