Asia and Oceania

Macao

Region Name: The Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China

Last reviewed: 8 December 2006

Country information

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HISTORY

The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China covers an area of just 28.2 square kilometres on China's South East coast, to the west of the Pearl River Delta. Bordering Guangdong Province, it is 60km from Hong Kong and 145km from the mainland city of Guangzhou. Macao has been growing as a result of land reclamation: in the 19th century it covered only 10.28 square kilometres. The territory is made up of the peninsula of Macao, and the two islands of Taipa and Coloane, linked by a 2.2 kilometre long strip of reclaimed land known as Cotai.

Portuguese fishermen are believed to have first settled Macao in the 16th Century, making Macao the oldest permanent European settlement in East Asia. For nearly 300 years the Portuguese paid China an annual tribute for use of the Peninsula, but in 1846, Portugal stopped making rent payments and in 1849 they proclaimed Macao to be a free port. They secured control of Taipa and Coloane islands in 1851 and 1864 respectively.

British links with Macao go back a long way. The first recorded British Trade Mission to Macao took place in 1583. Jardine and Matheson, two British businessmen who in the 1830s founded the famous Hong Kong company that bears their name traded with Macao before venturing into Hong Kong.

In the late 1970s, Portugal let it be known that it was willing to negotiate Macao's return to China. Both governments declared that Macao was a Chinese territory under Portuguese administration and agreed that the issue should be settled through friendly consultation.

Following the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984 on the future of Hong Kong, China and Portugal embarked on several rounds of negotiations to agree Macao's future.

This led in 1987 to the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Question of Macao and, ultimately, to China resuming administration of Macao on 20 December 1999.