Macau

The Macao Special Administrative Region (Macau or Macao, ) is one of China's two Special Administrative Regions. (The other one is Hong Kong). Macau is a small city in the southern coast in China. Like Hong Kong, Macau has a large amount of autonomy, with its own passport, currency, economic rules, and constitution.

It consists of Macau Peninsula (Aomen Bandao), Taipa Island (Dangzai Dao), Coloane Island (Luhuan Dao) and Cotai (Ludangcheng), the new reclaimed land between Taipa and Coloane. It is very densely populated, with over half a million people living in just over 12 square miles.

Macao used to be a colony of Portugal. Although Portuguese is an official language alongside Chinese (as a result of it being a Portuguese colony in the past), very few Macanese actually speak Portuguese; only about 0.7% speak it at home. As a matter of fact, English is more commonly spoken, despite it not being an official language (about 2.3% speak it at home). Cantonese is the main dialect of Chinese spoken in Macau. However, Mandarin has also become more common since Portugal returned it to China in 1999.

Today, Macao mostly lives off of offshore gambling. In fact, Macau generated 7 times greater gambling revenue than Las Vegas in 2013. People in Macau also make some money from exporting clothing.