Macau

Macau or Macao (; ; , ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a population of about 680,000 and an area of , it is the most densely populated region in the world.

Formerly a Portuguese colony, the territory of Portuguese Macau was first leased to Portugal as a trading post by the Ming dynasty in 1557. Portugal paid an annual rent and administered the territory under Chinese sovereignty until 1887. Portugal later gained perpetual colonial rights in the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking. The colony remained under Portuguese rule until 1999, when it was transferred to China. Macau is a special administrative region of China, which maintains separate governing and economic systems from those of mainland China under the principle of "one country, two systems".. The unique blend of Portuguese and Chinese architecture in the city's historic centre led to its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005.

Originally a sparsely populated collection of coastal islands, Macau, often referred to as the "Las Vegas of the East", has become a major resort city and a top destination for gambling tourism, with a gambling industry seven times larger than that of Las Vegas.. The city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, US$43,770 in 2021, and its GDP per capita by purchasing power parity is one of the highest in the world.. It has a very high Human Development Index, as calculated by the Macau government, and the fourth-highest life expectancy in the world.

The territory is highly urbanised; two-thirds of the total land area is built on land reclaimed from the sea..

Etymology

The first known written record of the name "Macau", rendered as "A Ma Gang" (), is found in a letter dated 20 November 1555. The local inhabitants believed that the sea goddess Matsu (alternatively called A-Ma) had blessed and protected the harbour and called the waters around A-Ma Temple using her name.. When Portuguese explorers first arrived in the area and asked for the place name, the locals thought they were asking about the temple and told them it was "Ma Kok" (). The earliest Portuguese spelling for this was ''Amaquão''. Multiple variations were used until ''Amacão / Amacao'' and ''Macão / Macao'' became common during the 17th century. The 1911 reform of Portuguese orthography standardised the spelling ''Macau''; however, the use of ''Macao'' persisted in English and other European languages.

The Macau Peninsula had many names in Chinese, including ''Jing'ao'' (), ''Haojing'' (), and ''Haojing'ao'' ().. The islands Taipa, Coloane, and Hengqin were collectively called ''Shizimen'' (). These names would later become ''Aomen'' (), ''Oumún'' in Cantonese and translating as "bay gate" or "port gate", to refer to the whole territory.

History

During the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), the region was under the jurisdiction of Panyu County, Nanhai Prefecture of the province of Guangdong... The region is first known to have been settled during the Han dynasty. It was administratively part of Dongguan Prefecture in the Jin dynasty (266–420 AD), and alternated under the control of Nanhai and Dongguan in later dynasties. In 1152, during the Song dynasty (960–1279 AD), it was under the jurisdiction of the new Xiangshan County. In 1277, approximately 50,000 refugees fleeing the Mongol conquest of China settled in the coastal area.

Macau did not develop as a major settlement until the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century. The first European visitor to reach China by sea was the explorer Jorge Álvares, who arrived in 1513.. Merchants first established a trading post in Hong Kong waters at Tamão (present-day Tuen Mun), beginning regular trade with nearby settlements in southern China. Military clashes between the Ming and Portuguese navies followed the expulsion of the Tamão traders in 1521.. Despite the trade ban, Portuguese merchants continued to attempt to settle on other parts of the Pearl River estuary, finally settling on Macau. In their first attempts at obtaining trading posts by force, the Portuguese were defeated by the Ming Chinese at the Battle of Tunmen in Tamão (or Tuen Mun) in 1521, where the Portuguese lost two ships; the Battle of Sincouwaan in Lantau Island where the Portuguese also lost two ships; in Shuangyu in 1548, where several Portuguese were captured; and near the Dongshan Peninsula in 1549, where two Portuguese junks and Galeote Pereira were captured. During these battles the Ming Chinese captured weapons from the defeated Portuguese which they then reverse engineered and mass-produced in China such as matchlock musket arquebuses which they named bird guns and Breech loading swivel guns which they named as Folangji (Frankish) cannon because the Portuguese were known to the Chinese under the name of Franks at this time. The Portuguese later returned to China peacefully and presented themselves under the name Portuguese instead of Franks in the Luso-Chinese agreement (1554) and rented Macau as a trading post from China by paying annual lease of hundreds of silver taels