I guess I’ve always taken it for granted, but finally decided to look up “formosa” in an online Portuguese dictionary. To my surprise, it’s just translated as “Taiwan.” I don’t speak Portuguese so can anybody explain?
(I looked up “ilha” and it is “island”).
Is “formosa” archaic and no longer in use?
“Hermosa” (almost phonetically identical to “formosa”) means beautiful in Spanish, which is a very close relative of Portuguese, so there’s no reason to doubt the explanation. An online check translates formosa/o to hermosa/o, as well, so it’s probably not archaic.
Here’s a little wiki for ya: "Taiwan (historically called Formosa, from Portuguese: Ilha Formosa, “Beautiful Island”. BTW not surprisingly they called it that after observing the east coast while on their trade route. They named it having never stepped foot on it as far as I’ve heard
The sure as hell didn’t see Zhonghe before they choose that name.
Whenever I drive to Costco I marvel at the beauty of Zhonghe. The elevated highway right on top of the main road makes sure no sun light can turn one of Zhonghe’s noble residents into a dark skinned peasant, whereas the high levels of dust soak off any perspiration from the face so that nobody looks like a sweaty blue collar worker. The many binlang stalls are a great demonstration why Taiwanese say Zhonghe is famous for its beautiful women. What is there not to like about the place?
What’s not to like, it’s better than Wugu isn’t it ? 
Are you by any means insulting the wonderful coastal resort city of Wugu, the Cote d’Azure of Taiwan?
Wugu is horribly ugly but at least it’s close to the mountains (Guanyingshan) and riverside pathways.
And to top it off, they weren’t even talking about us.
Hahahaha!
But I guess it’s too late to correct it now!
BTW, answering the OP’s question from 5 years ago…
Formosa, in Portuguese, means “the one who possess beautiful forms” and not “beautiful island” as it had being wrongly translated in many places.
We can even say that a girl is “formosa” and she isn’t a island for sure!
I guess “hermosa” in Spanish would be translated to “charmosa” in Portuguese, which means “the one who is full of charms”.
In short, they all can mean beautiful, just different types of beauty 
I thought it meant “voluptuous,” which is a nice way of saying “fat.” In other words, Island of Fat Women.
That would be Coney Island.
I remember having wrote about this subject, but couldn’t find it anywhere.
Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the newly founded Ming government were dealing directly with Muslim traders and became aware of the Muslim’s advance cartography skills. Zhu Yuan-zhang, the first emperor of the Ming dynasty, commissioned Muslim cartographers to make a world map, and the result was the Da Ming Hunyi Tu.
Da Ming Hunyi Tu included Europe and Africa in the map (with a distorted proportion), but did not feature Taiwan. Meaning at the time, even Muslim sailors were unaware of Taiwan’s existence. The map was made 16 years before Zheng He’s first voyager to the Indian ocean. Zheng He, himself a Muslim, depended largely on the experience of Muslim sailors, was unaware of the existence of Taiwan. With a map like the Da Ming Hunyi Tu at his disposal, Zheng’s voyages were less exploration and more hitting the best destinations in Lonely Planet.
Ming Chinese didn’t have a name for Taiwan until 1603. They followed Japanese pirates to Taiwan, and named Taiwan Dongfan (東番, the Eastern Barbarians). Chen Di (陳第), a member of the Ming expedition to Taiwan to drive away Japanese pirates, wrote about his experience in a book called Dongfanji (Journey to Dongfan). In the annotation of Dongfanji by Chen’s friend, it was written that before the expedition by General Shen Yourong (沈有容), no one knew the existence of Dongfan. Chen and his friend were natives of the Matsu islands in Fujian. So obviously the existence of the island was news to the Chinese, even to those living along the coast.
The story goes that a Portuguese sailor named the island in 1544. That would be 36 years before the Iberian Union began.
The Portuguese first gained special permission to trade at Macau in 1535, then gained special permission to trade with Japan in 1542. Prior to the Iberian Union and the Dutch VOC, the Portuguese had a brief monopoly in trade with China and Japan. The Portuguese ship passing by the island was getting to Japan from Macau, and taking a route on the East coast of Taiwan instead of the more dangerous route through the Taiwan strait. In most early documents the Portuguese traveled to Japan using the old Chinese navigational methods, and stayed close to the coast of China and Korea. The 1542 voyage was possibly the first trips for the Portuguese to get to Japan without hugging China’s coast.
To get an clearer perspective of what was going on at the time, Magellan already circumnavigated the world in 1521. The Spanish won’t occupy Manila until 1570. The Portuguese were the only real players in the region at the time.
Formosa and its Spanish version Hermosa are derived from the Latin word formosus, meaning “beautiful, handsome, finely formed”. Formosus is from forma, meaning “form, shape” and the adjective suffix -osus, meaning “full of”.
The first map featuring Taiwan was by the Portuguese cartographer Lopo Homem in 1554. The first account of European landing on the island was by a Spanish Jesuits priest Alonso Sanchez. He was trying to get to Japan from Macau, but was stranded on the island on July 16, 1582, due to an unfortunate accident. The captain of the ship, Andre Feio, and 300 crew members were stuck on the island for 10 weeks. By this time the Iberian Union was established, so it’s pretty pointless trying to tell if the expedition was a Spanish or Portuguese’ one.
It is also worth noting that at the time writing for both Spanish and Portuguese had not standardized. There were plenty of ways that the Portuguese wrote Formosa, and likewise, plenty of ways the Spanish wrote Hermosa.
When Lopo Homem made his map in 1554, the island was recorded as Fremosa.
When a Spanish fleet commanded by captain Francisco Gali passed by Taiwan’s East coast in 1584, Taiwan was recorded in the log as “Ilhas Fermosas.” By 1597, Hernando de los Rios Coronel commisioned a Spanish map of the area, and Taiwan was recorded as Isla Hermosa.
Prior to this map, most maps either featured Fermosa as a cluster of tiny islands, or one of 3 small islands.
Even Dutch cartographers used Fermosa sometimes, as seen in A. Ortelius’ map from 1570.
The Spanish also named a province in Argentina Formosa, it is said that the name came from the archaic Fermosa, which is the archaic form of Hermosa. However, the name sake came from Spanish sailors in the 16th century describing the area where the Paraguay River makes a turn, right in front of the actual city, and those 16th century Spanish sailors called it Vuelta Fermosa or Vuelta la Formosa.
I think the name Formosa is an archaic form of “beautiful” in both Portuguese and Spansih, and it was indeed referring to the island of Taiwan, even though at the time they weren’t aware Taiwan was a much bigger, contiguous island. After arriving at Taiwan, the Dutch probably looked up the Latin etymology of Fermosa, Hermosa, Formosa and decided Formosa was closer to the original Latin and chose it over the other forms.
i’m looking for the “ironic Like” button
Yah, i would agree with that. having lived on and sailed next to both.
Lol!
nudge nudge…
“formosa” and “hermosa” share the same etymology, with the f-h correspondence between Portuguese and Spanish:
falar - hablar
ferro - herro
filho - hijo