Macau, a special administrative region of China, is a peninsula located bordering the southern coast of China and the South China Sea. It is approximately 36 miles directly west of Hong Kong. According to the 1987 treaty between Portugal and China, “China’s socialist economic system will not be practiced in Macau, and that Macau will enjoy a high degree of autonomy in all matters except foreign and defense affairs for the next 50 years.” (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mc.html) Macau is less than one-sixth the size of Washington, DC. Its government falls under China. Its currency is the pataca.
The July 2007 estimate of the population was 456,989 with a population growth rate of only .84 percent. The current life expectancy is 82.27 years with women outliving men by almost six years.
The major language spoken is Catonese; Hokkien, Mandarian, and other Chinese dialects are also spoken. Macau has a 91.3 percent literacy rate of people over the age of 15 with over seven percent more men being literate than women. Fifty percent of the population are Buddhists and 15 percent are Roman Catholic.
Macau has a well-to-do economy with apparel exports, tourism, and gambling being the mainstays of the economy.
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