Areia Preta
Areia Preta is a reclaimed high-rise district on Macau's northeast shore, named for the iron-dark sand of a coastline that no longer exists.
Macau Destinations
Macau is small enough to cross in forty minutes and layered enough that the crossing changes everything — surface, street width, building age, and what the ground under you was doing a century ago.
All Destinations
36 places across Macau
Barra
Barra is the peninsula's southern tip — the 16th-century [A-Ma Temple](/macau/attractions/a-ma-temple/) built into granite hillside, and the 1874 [Moorish Barracks](/macau/attractions/moorish-barracks/) on the slope above.
Cheoc Van
Cheoc Van is a sheltered cove on Coloane's southeast coast, roughly 1.5 km from the village, with a municipal sea-view pool and a pine-forested hillside behind it.
Coloane
Coloane keeps 7.6 km² of protected green, Macau's high point at 172.4 m, a 1928 chapel on calçada paving, and the original Lord Stow's egg tart.
Coloane Village
Coloane Village keeps its fishing-port layout — a 1928 baroque chapel on calçada paving, the 1862 [Tam Kong Temple](/macau/attractions/tam-kung-temple/), and the first [Lord Stow's Bakery](/macau/attractions/lord-stows-bakery/).
Cotai
Cotai is 5.2 km² reclaimed between [Taipa](/macau/destinations/taipa-island/) and [Coloane](/macau/destinations/coloane-island/) from 2004 — Macau's resort strip, and the single most important travel destination on this site.
Cotai Strip
[Cotai](/macau/destinations/cotai/) Strip is the trademarked resort corridor within Cotai — themed integrated resorts along Avenida Cotai, distinct from the wider reclaimed district around it.
Fai Chi Kei
Fai Chi Kei is a public-housing district on Macau's northwest shore, its 1932 resettlement blocks replaced by architect Manuel Vicente's award-winning 1979–83 housing scheme, itself demolished in 2010.
Guia
Guia Hill carries a 1622 fortress, a chapel whose Sino-European frescoes surfaced in 1996, and the 1865 lighthouse — the first on the Chinese coast.
Hac Sá
Hác Sá is dark mineral sand on Coloane's southeast coast, backed by a casuarina-forested park and a separate 37.1-hectare reservoir park inland.
Historic Centre
The Historic Centre of Macau covers 1.43 km² and 22 monuments — Renaissance granite, taipa walls and calçada paving, UNESCO-listed since 2005.
Inner Harbour
The Inner Harbour was Macau's trade terminus from the 16th century — tong lau shophouses, granite wharf footings and cast-iron balconies remain.
Macau
Macau is a 33 km² Chinese SAR on the Pearl River estuary — a Portuguese trading post until 1999, now a UNESCO-listed centre ringed by resort towers.
Macau Peninsula
The Macau Peninsula holds the UNESCO historic centre: calçada squares, the Ruins of St Paul's, and chunambo walls built for typhoons and salt air.
Mong Há
Mong Há is a hillside district north of the centre, built around an 1849 rammed-earth fort, a 1920s barracks, and a park of terraced walking paths.
Nam Van
Nam Van is Macau's civic waterfront — an artificial lake behind the [Praia Grande](/macau/attractions/avenida-praia-grande/) seawall, the Legislative Assembly, and a 1.6 km lakeside boardwalk.
Outer Harbour
The Outer Harbour is Macau's sea gateway — the 1993 ferry terminal, the TurboJET and Cotai Water Jet berths, and 1930s reclamation seawalls.
Senado
Senado Square anchors central Macau, with the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception inside the [Leal Senado](/macau/attractions/leal-senado-building/) — added 1784, rebuilt after 1874.
Taipa
Taipa sets the 1921 Macanese houses on Avenida da Praia against Rua do Cunha's shophouse lane, with the airport and the LRT on reclaimed ground east.
Taipa Village
Taipa Village keeps a pedestrian core of pastel two-storey shophouses on [Rua do Cunha](/macau/attractions/rua-do-cunha/), with the 1885 Our Lady of Carmel church above the coast.
ZAPE
ZAPE is Macau's outer-harbour reclamation of 1919–1938 — a commercial grid of towers, with Fisherman's Wharf on its eastern waterfront.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Cotai or the Peninsula — where should I stay?
- Cotai if the resorts are the point: the properties are self-contained, the rooms are large, and free shuttles connect them to both ferry terminals and the airport. The Peninsula if the old city is the point — from a hotel near Senado Square or the Inner Harbour you can walk the entire UNESCO core before lunch. The two are about fifteen minutes apart by road, so the choice is about which one you want at street level when you step out of the lobby, not about access.
- How many days does Macau need?
- Two full days covers the Historic Centre on foot and one Cotai evening without rushing either. Three lets you add Coloane — the village, the Chapel of St Francis Xavier, and the trails on the granite ridge — which is the part most short visits drop. A single day is enough only for the Peninsula walk, and it will be a compressed one.
- Is Macau walkable, or do you need transport?
- The Peninsula is walkable and rewards it — the street grid is Portuguese-scaled, narrow and shaded, and the distance from A-Ma Temple to the Ruins of St Paul's is under three kilometres with the whole UNESCO listing strung along the way. Cotai is not: the resorts are separated by six-lane roads and designed to be entered from a porte-cochère. Between the two zones, the free resort shuttles and the LRT Taipa line do the work.
- What is the difference between Taipa and Cotai?
- Taipa is an original island with a real village at its core — Rua do Cunha, the 1921 colonial-green Taipa Houses on Avenida da Praia, and a food street that predates the casinos. Cotai is reclaimed land that did not exist as dry ground until the 2000s; every building on it is younger than the fill it stands on. They adjoin, and confusing them will send you to the wrong end of a fifteen-minute walk.
- Which currency should I bring?
- The pataca (MOP) is official and pegged to the Hong Kong dollar, but Hong Kong dollars are accepted almost everywhere at one-to-one. That parity is a rounding convention, not an exchange rate — the peg sits slightly above par, so paying in HKD costs a small premium and change frequently comes back in patacas you cannot spend in Hong Kong. Casinos price in HKD.