Macao

Macao is a special administrative region of China on the south coast, facing Hong Kong across the Pearl River estuary. It is made up of the Macau Peninsula, the islands of Taipa and Coloane and the reclaimed Cotai zone between them; as a city territory it has no separate capital. Chinese and Portuguese are the official languages, and Cantonese is spoken by most people.

The name goes back to A-Ma, a sea goddess whose temple stood by the harbor. The Portuguese explorer Jorge Álvares reached China by sea in 1513, and in 1557 Portugal won a permanent lease on Macao in return for a yearly rent in silver. The port grew rich as a stop on the sea route to Japan, and its defenders drove off a Dutch attack in 1622. Decline set in after Japan stopped the trade in 1639, and British Hong Kong later drew away its shipping. Portugal then stopped paying rent, annexed Taipa in 1851 and Coloane in 1864, and won lasting colonial rights in the Treaty of Peking of 1887.

Japan left the neutral colony unoccupied in World War II. After the Carnation Revolution of 1974 Lisbon recognized Macao as Chinese territory under its administration. The Joint Declaration of 1987 set the handover, which took place at midnight on 20 December 1999. Its Basic Law, built on the formula of one country, two systems, keeps its own laws and economy; a Chief Executive, nominated by an Election Committee and appointed by the State Council in Beijing, leads the government, and a partly elected Legislative Assembly passes laws.

Macao has 32.9 km² (12.7 sq mi) of land, two-thirds of it reclaimed from the sea. Casinos were legalized in 1962 and run as a monopoly until 2002, when open bidding brought in the Sands Macao, Wynn Macau, MGM Macau and Venetian Macau, and gambling became the base of the economy. The historic center, a mix of Portuguese and Chinese buildings, joined the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2005. Each November the Macau Grand Prix turns streets into the Guia Circuit, and since 2018 the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge links it to the eastern shore of the estuary.