Macau, China Overview
According to abbreviationfinder, Macau [Portuguese], Macao, Chinese Aomen, is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) on the south coast of China, about 65 km west of Hong Kong.
Macau consists of an approximately 5 km long, 6 km 2 peninsula connected to the Chinese mainland by a spit with the city of Macau and the islands of Taipa (6.2 km 2) and Coloane (7.6 km 2) off the peninsula to the south); a total of 26.8 km 2(continual enlargement due to landfilling). With (2016) 650 900 residents, Macau has an extremely high population density (21 482 residents / km 2); 95% of the population are Chinese, the rest Portuguese-speaking Eurasians. Most of the residents speak Cantonese (southern Chinese dialect). Official languages: Portuguese and Chinese. Currency unit: 1 Pataca (Pat.) = 100 Avos (Avs). The Hong Kong $ (1 Hong Kong $ = 1 Pataca) is also considered a means of payment.
Climate: Macau lies in the zone of tropical-summer humid monsoon climates. 82% of the annual precipitation of 2,250 mm falls in the months of April to September.
The economy Macau is facing competition from cheap labor in China and Southeast Asia. As a result, the manufacturing industry was increasingly displaced and Macau’s dependence on tourism and gambling (70% of current tax revenues) increased. Gambling (gambling is prohibited in Hong Kong) and tourism account for 40% of the gross domestic product (GDP), while the manufacturing industry (textiles, clothing, electronics and plastics) only accounts for 9%. The fishing is not insignificant. The number of tourists in 2001 was around 10.3 million (70% from Hong Kong and China). Foreign trade is v. a. with China, Hong Kong, the EU, Japan, Taiwan and the USA. The exports go v. a. to the USA, EU, China and Hong Kong; Textiles and clothing are the most important export goods.
The Foreign relations of Macao took place v to 1995th a. via Hong Kong (hydrofoils, motor boats, helicopters). Taipa is connected to Coloane by a 2.2 km long bridge and to the peninsula by a 2.9 km and 4.7 km long bridge. Since 2000 there has been a bridge connection (1.3 km long) to Zhuhai. In 1995 the international airport was opened on Taipa (on an artificial island), in 1991 a deep-water and container port was opened on Macau.
History: The Portuguese first visited the region in 1513; In 1557 the mandarins over the province of Canton gave them the area that played a central role in international trade with China and Japan. In 1575 Macau became a bishopric. Several Dutch invasion attempts (1604-27) failed. After 1842 it lost its importance for the Chinese trade due to the rapid development of Hong Kong. In 1845 Macau was declared a free port; Portugal then stopped its lease payments and occupied the islands of Taipa and Coloane in 1849. In 1887, in a treaty, China recognized Portugal’s sovereignty over Macau, which in 1951 became the “Portuguese overseas province” and (after bloody unrest in 1966) received full internal autonomy in 1976 as “Chinese territory under Portuguese administration”.
Transportation
The north and northeast, as well as some regions on the east coast, are relatively well connected to the rail network, while there are no railway lines in south and west China. Almost all main routes are characterized by one or more bottlenecks that can significantly hinder transport. Many routes are congested in the eastern provinces. The expansion of the north-south railway connections and the connection of the central and western regions to the road network are important projects for improving the transport infrastructure. The railways are particularly important in long-distance traffic, but also in high-speed traffic within metropolitan areas, including the Transrapid in Shanghai. In Tibet, the Lhasa Railway (Tibet Railway) is the highest railway connection in the world.
The road network covers almost 5 million km. It has grown tremendously since 1952. Road traffic is still of relatively minor importance for freight traffic. Three quarters of all goods are transported by road, but mostly only over short distances. However, the road network plays the main role for passenger traffic. Private car traffic has increased rapidly and is causing constant traffic jams in many cities. The major road traffic structures also include superlative sea bridges, for example across Hangzhou Bay between Shanghai and Ningbo (2008) and between Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland (2018), both 36 km long.
Inland shipping was the most important freight transport system for China until the 1950s. A tenth of goods are still transported via rivers and canals. The length of the navigable inland waterways is around 110,000 km. Two thirds of them are in the catchment area of the Yangtze and the Pearl River. The Imperial Canal has connected Hangzhou and Beijing since the 13th century. For foreign trade, the seaports of Hong Kong , Shanghai, Ningbo, Guangzhou , Tianjin , Qinhuangdao and Dalian of great importance.
The economic changes since the beginning of the 1980s led to a rapidly growing importance of air traffic. Several airlines emerged from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) founded in 1949; the largest are Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines. There are a total of 500 civil airports. Beijing (Beijing Capital; Beijing Daxing, opened in 2019), Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xiamen and Shenyang own the largest.
