Nangan, Taiwan

Nangan, Taiwan: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Nangan is a township in the Matsu Islands, forming part of Lienchiang County in Taiwan's Fuchien Province. As an outlying island group situated off the coast of mainland China, the Matsu Islands depend on submarine cables to maintain connectivity with the main island of Taiwan. Two submarine cables land at Nangan, making it a modest but dedicated cable landing point serving the inter-island corridor between the Matsu Islands and Taiwan proper.

Both cables landing at Nangan connect exclusively within Taiwan, linking Nangan to other parts of the island nation's domestic submarine cable network. The Taiwan Penghu Kinmen Matsu No.3 (TPKM3) and Taiwan-Matsu No.4 cables together represent the submarine connectivity infrastructure serving this island community. These are intra-national links, reflecting the geographic reality of island territories that require dedicated undersea routes to remain connected to the broader national network.

Cables Landing at Nangan, Taiwan

Taiwan Penghu Kinmen Matsu No.3 (TPKM3) is a 510 km submarine cable that reached ready-for-service (RFS) status in 2013, currently listed in draft status. This cable connects landing points exclusively within Taiwan, forming part of the domestic inter-island cable system that links the Matsu, Penghu, and Kinmen island groups to the main island of Taiwan. Nangan serves as one of its endpoints, anchoring the Matsu Islands within this intra-national cable route.

Taiwan-Matsu No.4 is a 300 km submarine cable with a projected RFS year of 2026, also listed in draft status. Like TPKM3, this cable connects points exclusively within Taiwan, further reinforcing the submarine link between Nangan and other Taiwanese landing points. When operational, it will provide an additional path for inter-island connectivity serving the Matsu Islands corridor.

Regional Context

Within Taiwan's submarine cable landscape, which spans 21 cables across 21 landing points, Nangan ranks alongside Dawu, Fangshan, and Huxi Township as a landing point hosting two cables. It sits below higher-density hubs such as Toucheng and Tanshui, which serve nine and eight cables respectively, and the three-cable point of Dongyin. Nangan's two cables place it in the top 86 percent of Taiwanese landing points by cable count, reflecting its dedicated but focused role among the country's island-serving infrastructure.

Network Role

Nangan functions as a dual-cable inter-island terminus, connecting the Matsu Islands to the broader Taiwanese domestic submarine cable network. Both TPKM3 and Taiwan-Matsu No.4 are intra-national cables, meaning Nangan enables no intercontinental or cross-border routing; its role is entirely oriented toward sustaining island connectivity within Taiwan. With one operational cable and a second under development, the landing point is positioned to gain a degree of path redundancy when Taiwan-Matsu No.4 reaches its projected 2026 RFS date.

Within the regional submarine cable graph, Nangan represents the category of island community landing points that anchor outlying territories to a national network through short, domestically focused cable routes. The presence of two cables, one established and one forthcoming, illustrates an ongoing effort to build resilience into the inter-island connection serving the Matsu Islands.