18 December 2020 | Author/Destination: Asia / Asien | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage
Reading Time: 19 minutesMarina at Macau Fisherman’s Wharf © Mfwmarketing/cc-by-sa-4.0
Macau, also spelled Macao and officially the
Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, is a city and
special administrative region of the
People’s Republic of China in the western
Pearl River Delta by the
South China Sea. With a population of about 650,000 and an area of 32.9 km² (12.7 sq mi), it is the most
densely populated region in the world. Macau is
a former colony of the Portuguese Empire, after
Ming China leased the territory as a trading post in 1557. Portugal paid an annual rent and administered the territory under Chinese sovereignty until 1887, when it 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“. Originally a sparsely populated collection of coastal islands, the territory 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 territory is highly urbanised and most development is built on
reclaimed land; two-thirds of the total land area is reclaimed from the sea.
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