In the summer of 19 5 3, a 3 % sample of the households in a rural area of Taiwan was enumerated. Special attention was paid to the fertility histories of women and, among other information, dates of births of live-born children to women living at the survey date were obtained. The data were extracted from registration records, occasionally checked by personal interview. Women aged 45–64 had borne an average of 7.1 children. The oldest cohorts (women over 65 at survey) appeared to have a lower fertility. This is in part due to the reduction in the incidence of early widowhood, caused by the improved mortality of men since the beginning of the century. The data are further analysed by parity and age at marriage. Tabulations of the intervals between births of successive order, show that these remain constant with increasing birth order at about 2.7 years. The age at the last confinement was about 40 years.