The Macau Special Administrative Region (; pt, Região Administrativa Especial de Macau; /nowiki>abbreviated as: ''RAEM''/nowiki>), commonly known as Macau or Macao (, or informally as 馬交 ''Mǎjiāo'') is one of the two

special administrative regions The special administrative regions (SAR) of the People's Republic of China are one of the provincial-level administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China directly under the control of its Central People's Government (State Co ...

(SARs) of the China (PRC), along with

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

Portuguese name

Legend

The name

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...

() is thought to be derived from the '' Templo de A-Má'' (Temple of A-Ma or Ma Kok Temple) (媽閣廟, Cantonese

Jyutping Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates fo ...

: ''Maa1 Gok3 Miu6'', local pronunciation: ''Maa5 Gok3 Miu6'' or ''Maa5 Gok3 Miu2''), a still-existing landmark built in 1448 dedicated to the goddess Matsu - the goddess of seafarers and fishermen. In keeping with saga, a fishing boat sailing across the sea one day found itself in an unexpected storm. Everyone on board was about to give up all hope of surviving this natural disaster when an attractive young lady, who had boarded the boat at the eleventh hour, stood up and ordered the tempest to calm down. The

gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface winds moving at a speed of between 34 and 47 knots (, or ).aura of light and fragrance; she immediately ascended into heaven. A

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

was built on the specific location where she set foot. Several hundred years later (circa 1513), when

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

sailors landed and asked the name of the place, the locals replied "媽閣" (). The Portuguese then named the peninsula "Macao". A number of other legends exist, including a derivation from 馬交, which is more likely derived from the Portuguese name.

Textual evidence

Textual evidence points to the name "Macau" being derived from a local name (), written as such in both Chinese and Japanese texts since the sixteenth century. The name was transcribed variously as "Amaquão" among other spellings, which is equivalent to "Amacão" () in sound. The corrupted "Macão" appeared in 1641, before finally losing the nasal

tilde The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...

into the near-modern form of "Macao" in a 1652 Jesuit publication. The evolution to "Macau" is generally attributed to the 1911

Reforms of Portuguese orthography The Portuguese language began to be used regularly in documents and poetry around the 12th century. Unlike neighboring Romance languages that adopted formal orthographies by the 18th century, the Portuguese language did not have a uniform spelli ...

. Contemporary Spanish text used a name "Macan", pronounced similarly to "Macão". Batalha suggests that the loss of nasalization may have to do with association with the word '' cão'' (dog, devil).

Chinese names

The

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

name ''Aomen'' 澳門 (

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

: ''Àomén'', Cantonese: ''Ou3 Mun4*2'' ) means "''Inlet Gates''". The "gates" refer to two erect gate-like mountains of Nantai () and Beitai (). Alternately, ''Ao'' may derive from Macau's previous name ''Heong San Ou'', as it is geographically situated at "Cross' Door". Macau is also known as: * Hou Keng Ou (壕鏡澳 Oyster-mirror Inlet) * Heong San Ou (香山澳 Xiangshan Ao; Fragrant-mountain Inlet) * Lin Tou (蓮島 Liandao; Lotus Island) * Soda Port (梳打埠) While ''Ou3 Mun2'' is the traditional Cantonese name of the place, it is common among the Cantonese-speaking to use the Portuguese-derived name 馬交 ''Maa5 Gaau1'' .

Duality in English

Two spellings of the name exist in English: "Macao", derived from the original Portuguese spelling; and "Macau", derived from the current orthography. Since the

transfer of sovereignty over Macau The transfer of sovereignty of Macau (; pt, Transferência da soberania de Macau) from Portugal to the People's Republic of China (PRC) occurred on 20 December 1999. Macau was settled by Portuguese merchants in 1557, during the Ming dynasty ...

in 1999, the government of Macau considers both "Macau" and "Macao" to be acceptable spellings of the name in English language publications, but the former was more widely used across English-speaking world, especially in the United States and Australia. While the latter was more widely used in the United Kingdom, especially in government documents. Meanwhile, the spelling was mixed in Canada. Dualism is visible in many English language government publications and documents, sometimes even within the same paragraph. For example, the spelling "Macao" appears on the local government's English language emblem as seen at its web portal and also at the official website of the Macao Government Tourism Office. Similarly, "Macao" is used on the

Macau Special Administrative Region passport The Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China passport (; pt, Passaporte da Região Administrativa Especial de Macau) is a passport issued to Chinese citizens who are permanent residents of Macau. In accordance ...

, but the government's official explanatory note on the passport spells it as "Macau". most English-language books use "Macau". - Cited: pages xvii-xviii (PDF p. 14-15/67)

Official and diplomatic status

There are two official versions of the Basic Law of Macau, one in Chinese and one in Portuguese. According to articles 136 and 137 of the Basic Law the place may represent itself as "中國澳門" or "Macau, China". The two names are specified in the versions of their respective languages only and not vice versa. The "unofficial" English translations from Government Printing Bureau and University of Macau adopt the "Macao" spelling throughout. After the 1999 resumption of sovereignty the central government of China announced that Macao would be the spelling in English. The Macau authorities issued an internal circular on the matter since when government publications in English use the spelling Macao. Less commonly used is the

transcription of 澳門 ''Aòmén'', but its usage is not used officially. The decision not to adopt pinyin names after the handover to China appears to be consistent with the usual PRC policy of respecting the local linguistic traditions in the romanized version of names, as in other non-pinyin names like

Lhasa Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China. The inner urban area of Lhas ...

Ürümqi Ürümqi ( ; also spelled Ürümchi or without umlauts), formerly known as Dihua (also spelled Tihwa), is the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the far northwest of the People's Republic of China. Ürümqi developed its ...

or Hohhot, for example. The preference for "Macao" may be explained by a similarity to 馬交 Mǎjiāo, in particular the

pronunciation of "ao" is approximately as in cow; the a is much more audible than the o. Notwithstanding the official

Basic Law of Macau The Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( zh, 中華人民共和國澳門特別行政區基本法, pt, Lei Básica da Região Administrativa Especial de Macau da República Popular da China) is ...

requirement to use ''"Macau, China"'', Macau participates in

international organisation An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states an ...

s and international sport events like

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...

and

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...

meetings and

East Asian Games The East Asian Games was a multi-sport event organized by the East Asian Games Association (EAGA) and held every four years from 1993 to 2013. Among those who competed included athletes from East Asian countries and territories of the Olympic ...

as ''"Macao, China"''. "Macao" is also the designated name of the

ISO 3166-1 ISO 3166-1 (''Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes'') is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It ...

country code MO, and of the top-level domain

.mo :''.mo can also refer to the file extension of binary files that have been compiled from .po files using GNU gettext.'' .mo is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Macau, China. The registry for this domain name is operated b ...

Historical names

In 1587, king

Philip I of Portugal Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from ...

(II of Spain) promoted Macau from "Settlement or Port of the Name of God" to "City of the

Name of God There are various names of God, many of which enumerate the various qualities of a Supreme Being. The English word ''god'' (and its equivalent in other languages) is used by multiple religions as a noun to refer to different deities, or speci ...

" ().

C. R. Boxer Sir Charles Ralph Boxer FBA GCIH (8 March 1904 – 27 April 2000) was a British historian of Dutch and Portuguese maritime and colonial history, especially in relation to South Asia and the Far East. In Hong Kong he was the chief spy for the ...

, ''Fidalgos in the Far East, 1550–1770''. Martinus Nijhoff (The Hague), 1948. p. 4

Alternative names for Macau