Municipality of Macau Concelho de Macau | |||||||||||
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 Flag  Seal | |||||||||||
 Macau Peninsula | |||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 澳門市 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 澳门市 | ||||||||||
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The Municipality of Macau (Portuguese : Concelho de Macau) was one of two municipalities of Macau, along with the Municipality of Ilhas.
Its bodies were the municipal council (Câmara Municipal de Macau) and the municipal assembly (Assembleia Municipal de Macau) (Câmara Municipal de Macau Provisória and Assembleia Municipal de Macau Provisória after December 20, 1999). The two municipalities were replaced by the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (Instituto para os Assuntos Cívicos e Municipais) in 2001.
In 1513, Portuguese explorer Jorge Álvares arrived in the Pearl River Delta, in the Shenzhen area, which he called Tamão. A Portuguese settlement was started there. By 1535 traders were allowed to anchor their ships in the harbour. In 1887, the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking was signed, allowing "the perpetual occupation and government of Macau by Portugal". [1]
According to National Geographic, "Macau may never have existed if not for Tamão" where the Portuguese learned "how China, the Pearl River Delta, and the South China Sea worked". The settlement and Jorge Álvares "kickstarted a chain of events that ultimately spawned Macau". A large stone sculpture of Álvares stands in downtown Macau. [2]
| Freguesia / Parish | 2013 Area (km2) [3] | 2013 Population [4] | Density (/km2) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Nossa Senhora de Fátima (花地瑪) | 3.2 | 237,500 | 74,218 |
 | Santo António (花王 / 聖安多尼) | 1.1 | 129,800 | 118,000 |
 | São Lázaro (望德) | 0.6 | 33,100 | 55,166 |
 | Sé (大) | 3.4 | 52,200 | 15,352 |
 | São Lourenço (風順 / 聖老愣佐) | 1.0 | 51,700 | 51,700 |
The population of the Macau Peninsula has been increasing rapidly for decades, particularly since the transfer of sovereignty to the People's Republic of China. With 45,675 inhabitants/km2, Macau has one of the highest population densities of any urban area.
| 1981 | 238.413 |
| 1991 | 342.548 |
| 1996 | 390.928 |
| 2001 | 388.647 |
| 2006 | 433.730 |
| 2011 | 469.009 |
| 2016 | 520.166 |
| 2017 [5] | 520.700 |
The Macau Peninsula is the historical and most populous part of Macau. It has an area of 8.5 square kilometers (3.3 sq mi) and is geographically connected to Guangdong Province at the northeast through an isthmus 200 meters (660 ft) wide. The peninsula, together with downtown Zhuhai, sits on an island separated from the continent by distributaries of the Pearl River. The Border Gate was built on the northern isthmus. At the south, the peninsula is connected to Taipa Island by three bridges, the Friendship Bridge ; the Macau-Taipa Bridge ; and the Sai Van Bridge . The longest axis extends 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) from the Border Gate to the southwestern edge, Barra (媽閣嘴). There is a western "Inner Harbor" (內港) paralleled by an "Outer Harbor" (外港) to the east. The 93 meters (305 ft) Guia Hill (松山) is the highest point on the peninsula, which has an average elevation of 50 to 75 meters. Many coastal places are reclaimed from the sea. The Historic Centre of Macau, which is entirely on the Macau Peninsula, became a World Heritage Site in 2005.
Portugal is a unitary state with delegated authority to three levels of local government that cover the entire country:
Freguesia, usually translated as "parish" or "civil parish", is the third-level administrative subdivision of Portugal, as defined by the 1976 Constitution. It is also the designation for local government jurisdictions in the former Portuguese overseas territories of Cape Verde and Macau. In the past, it was also an administrative division of the other Portuguese overseas territories. The parroquia in the Spanish autonomous communities of Galicia and Asturias is similar to a freguesia. The average land area of a Portuguese parish is about 29.83 km2 (11.52 sq mi) and an average population of about 3,386 people. The largest parish by area is Alcácer do Sal e Santa Susana, with a land area of 888.35 km2 (342.99 sq mi), and the smallest parish by area is São Bartolomeu (Borba), with a land area of 0.208 km2 (0.080 sq mi). The most populous parish is Algueirão - Mem Martins, with a population of 68,649 people and the least populous is Mosteiro, with a population of just nineteen people.
Concelho is the Portuguese-language term for municipality, referring to the territorial subdivision in local government. In comparison, the word município refers to the organs of State. This differentiation is still in use in Portugal and some of its former overseas provinces, but is no longer in use in Brazil following the abolition of these organs, in favour of the French prefecture system. It is similar to borough and council.
Macau is an autonomous territory within China. A Portuguese colony until 1999, Macau has a diverse culture firmly rooted in Cantonese culture, with a mix of influences from East Asia and Western Europe. Macau is known for being the largest gambling center in the world.
A câmara municipal is a type of municipal governing body, existing in several countries of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.
An Assembleia Municipal is the legislature that governs a municipality in Portugal. Part of the assembly's members are elected every four years among candidate lists by the D'Hondt method, simultaneously with the election of the Câmara Municipal; the remainder member are the presidents of the Junta de freguesia that compose the municipality, whose number cannot exceed the number of elected members. A municipal assembly generally meets five times a year, and its members are paid a presence fee for each meeting.
Praia do Almoxarife is a freguesia in the municipality (concelho) of Horta, of the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. The population in 2011 was 834, in an area of 9.20 km2. Although it was the beachhead of early settlement on the island, its population has not grown significantly since it was settled. It has become an important summer destination and tourist center for its long black sand beach.
The Municipal Affairs Bureau of Macau is an administrative body without political powers responsible for providing certain civic services for the special administrative region and is the successor to the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau which was abolished in 2019. The latter was formed to handle the functions of the former municipalities of Macau and their councils and assemblies that were abolished on 1 January 2002, slightly more than two years after Macau became a special administrative region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China. The body is under the Secretariat for Administration and Justice of the Macau government.
By the end of Portuguese rule, Macau was administratively divided into two municipalities and seven civil parishes. Parishes were administrative subdivisions of the municipalities. After the 1999 transfer of sovereignty over Macau from Portugal to China, parishes are still officially recognized divisions but for symbolic reasons only.
Jorge Álvares was a Portuguese explorer. He is credited as the first European to have reached China by sea during the Age of Discovery. His starting of settlements on an island in what is now Hong Kong is still considered a significant achievement, "for establishing commercial agreements with the Chinese [and for] maintaining the peace".
The Municipality of Ilhas was one of the two municipalities of Macau, along with the Municipality of Macau. Its organs were the Municipal Council of Ilhas and the Municipal Assembly of Ilhas.
Dr. Carlos d'Assumpção Park is a water-side park in Sé, Macau. Named after the Macanese leader Carlos d'Assumpção, it is located on Avenida Dr. Carlos d'Assumpção and besides the Garden of Commander Ho Yin.
The Leal Senado Building was the seat of Portuguese Macau's government. It is located at one end of the Senado Square in São Lourenço, Macau, China. It currently houses Macau's Municipal Affairs Bureau.
The Domus Municipalis is a Romanesque building in the northeastern municipality of Bragança in Portugal. The exact function of this building, even after research completed in the 20th century, is still largely unknown: it could have served as cistern, but there are doubts if this was its primary function.
Mong-Há Fort is a fort on Mong-Há Hill, Nossa Senhora de Fátima, Macau, China. The fort is part of a greater military reservation – the Bairro Militar de Mong-Há, which included the Quartel de Mong-Há. The Bairro Militar is bound by the Rua Francisco Xavier Pereira and the Colina de Mong-Há. The main fort complex was erected 1849 by Governor Ferreira do Amaral to protect the Macau's northern sector as precaution against a possible Chinese invasion following the First Opium War between Britain and China (1839–1842).
Fort of São João, also known as Fort of Biscoitinho, is a medieval fort, in the civil parish of São Mateus da Calheta, in the municipality of Angra do Heroísmo, on the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores.
South China is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is that most of its citizens are not native speakers of Standard Chinese. Cantonese is the most common language in the region while the Guangxi region contains the largest concentration of China's ethnic minorities.
The Tai Fung Tong Art House is an arts center in São Lázaro, Macau, China.
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Note: The civil parishes are purely symbolic. There are currently no political administrative subdivisions in Macau, and instead, the Municipal Affairs Bureau handles some of the functions formerly handled by the abolished municipalities, the former had replaced the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau that was formed in 2002. | ||||||
22°11′36″N113°32′22″E / 22.19333°N 113.53944°E
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