Welcome to Macau!
Macau (also spelled Macao 澳門, Oumùhn in Cantonese, Àomén in Mandarin) is a former Portuguese colony, a world-renowned gambling destination, and one of the world's most densely populated spots, with a population of 667,000 people (2016) in an area half the size of Manhattan Island. Returned to Chinese rule in 1999, it is now a semi-autonomous "Special Administrative Region", a status it shares with nearby Hong Kong.
Macau is best known as a major destination for gambling. This goes back to colonial times, when Hong Kong had tight limits on gambling—it was legal only at the horse racing track twice a week—but Macau had casinos. Today, Macau is the only part of China where casinos are legal under the auspices of the "One Country, Two Systems" arrangement. Macau overtook Las Vegas as the world's highest revenue gambling destination around 2008 and now has a substantial lead, several of the major Las Vegas casinos have built new establishments in Macau to cash in on the trend.
Macau is by no means only a gambling destination and other attractions include gorgeous colonial architecture, some of it on the UNESCO World Heritage List, a lovely climate and some fine beaches, and excellent food and drink.
Macau or Macao (Chinese 澳門), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), 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 680,000 and an area of 32.9 km2 (12.7 sq mi), it is the most densely populated region in the world.
Formerly a Portuguese colony, the territory of Portuguese Macau was 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, 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". The unique blend of Portuguese and Chinese architecture in the city's historic center 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, 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 urbanized, two-thirds of the total land area is built on land reclaimed from the sea.