MARKETING AND SOCIAL PATTERNS IN RURAL TAIWAN.

Specific economic and social patterns of a dispersed population in northern Taiwan reveal no basis for judging the village unit as the "self-contained world" of the rural householder either today or, from the available information, in the traditional past. The data collected in the field portray a remarkable conformity of spatial preferences with the administrative unit at the township (hsiang-chen) level. It appears that the hsiang-chen constitutes a social, economic, and administrative unit in which territoriality furnishes an important integrating element. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]