China Travel - China Provinces - Province Macao

Macau is situated at the sea coast of southeastern part of China to the west bank of the Pearl River Delta, surrounded by sea from three sides, linking the Zhuhai Economic Special Zone in the north of Guangdong Province, facing Hong Kong in the east with a distance of 40 nautical miles only an hour flight by hovercraft.

Macau comprises of Macau Peninsula, Taipa and Coloane islands. More than a hundred years ago, Macau showed clearly Macau Peninsula only, the area of which in that time occupied only 2,78 square kilometers, and later on it encompassed Taipa and Coloane islands. Over an hundred years of reclamation of land by filling the sea, the area of Macau Peninsula has been increased to 9.1 square kilometers, Taipa Island, 6.33 square kilometers, Coloane Island, 8.07 square kilometers and the total area of Macau is 23.5 square kilometers. The Macau Peninsula is the political, economic, transportation and cultural center of Macau. 94% of the population and overwhelming majority of industrial and commercial industries are concentrated on here.

Macau's total population is 0.4546 million among which over 96% are Chinese, the rest are mainly Portuguese in greater number. The language the Macau inhabitants use daily is mainly Cantonese and the locally born Portuguese can speck fluent Cantonese. The official languages currently in use are the Portuguese and the Chinese languages. English language is also used on many occasions.

Macau belongs to the monsoon climate of East Asian Subtropical Zone. The average annual temperature is 22C, the hottest month of the year falls in July, the average temperature is over 30C; the coldest month falls in January, the average temperature of which is 14C, the lowest, only a few degrees. The average annual relative humidity is 80%. Macau is typical of foggy weather in Spring. Its rainfall is frequent from July to September.

The Macau economy has entered into the highly open free market economic system, belonging to the microeconomic system which has developed into a pluralized economic infrastructure with processed products for exports, tourism and gambling lottery, real estate construction and banking insurance as the four major pillars.

Macau was the name given by the Portuguese. In the mid 16th century, with the expansion of "the great discovery of navigation" by the European colonialists, the Portuguese using "the drying of goods soaked in the water" as a pretext, gained the right of abode on the already open-for-trade Macau Peninsula through offering bribes to the officials of the Ming Dynasty and rapidly expanded territory under their control, and step by step occupied Macau, thus exercising colonialist control over Macau. None of previous Chinese governments had ever recognized the illegal occupation of Macau by Portugual. In 1979, China and Portugual established diplomatic relations and the Portuguese side affirmed that Macau was Chinese territory under Portuguese administration. On 20 December 1999, after 400 years of great changes from seas into mulberry fields and from mulberry fields into seas, China restored exercise of sovereignty over Macau and thus Macau has anew returned to the embrace of the motherland.

Macau has a long history with a rich and varied culture. The Macau Government and people attach great importance to the preservation and development of Macau culture imbued with the feature of Sino-European cultures.