Overview
Macau is a recognised territory located in Asia, specifically within the Eastern Asia subregion. It covers approximately 30 km² and is home to an estimated 685,900 people. The country has coastline along international waters, which has shaped its trade routes, climate, cuisine, and cultural exchanges with the rest of the world.
This profile pulls together the structured facts that most readers want at a glance — capital, currency, languages, borders — and links onward to the maps and neighbouring countries you are likely to need next. Every figure on this page is rendered server-side from a single dataset, so what you see here matches the regional indexes, statistics rankings, and continental hubs elsewhere on MapVista.
For travellers, students, journalists, and the merely curious, the goal is simple: a single readable page per country that answers the questions you actually asked, without redirecting you to a sign-up screen or a paywall. Citizens of Macau are commonly described as Macanese, a demonym you will encounter in news coverage and academic writing alike.
Geography & borders
Macau is a microstate, covering approximately 30 km² of land in Asia (specifically the Eastern Asia subregion). The country has coastline along international waters, which has shaped its trade routes, climate, and cultural exchanges with the rest of the world. Its approximate geographic centre lies at 22.17° N, 113.55° E, placing it in the northern hemisphere on a line with several other Eastern Asia nations. Macau shares a single land border, an unusual configuration that often produces close bilateral relations and shared infrastructure with its sole neighbour.
Bordering countries
Macau shares land borders with the following 1 neighbour. Each one links to its own full profile so you can hop around the region without losing your bearings:
Live map
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. · Open in OpenStreetMap · Open in Google Maps
People, demographics & density
With an estimated 685,900 residents, Macau is a small population. That works out to roughly 22,863.3 people per square kilometre, one of the higher national densities on the planet — typical of densely-urbanised states with limited habitable land. Citizens of Macau are commonly described as Macanese.
Compared with the global mean of roughly 60 people per square kilometre, Macau's figure of 22,863.3 people / km² places it among the very densest sovereign states on Earth, alongside the city-states of Asia and Europe.
Languages, currency & culture
Culturally, Portuguese and Chinese share official status in Macau, while Macanese pataca (MOP) is the official currency. Like every country in the catalogue, the linguistic situation on the ground is often more layered than the official picture, with regional languages, immigrant communities, and minority tongues woven through everyday life.
Official and recognised languages
- PortugueseISO 639 code: por
- ChineseISO 639 code: zho
Official currencies
- Macanese patacaISO 4217: MOP · P
Language and currency data are drawn from open sources and reflect the official position rather than the full sociolinguistic picture on the ground. Many countries recognise minority and regional languages in addition to the official ones listed here, and some use multiple currencies in practice — particularly in border regions and tourist economies.
Practical information
Macau operates on a single time zone, UTC+08:00, and uses the country-code top-level domain .mo online. Vehicles drive on the left-hand side of the road.
- Time zonesUTC+08:00
- Top-level domain.mo
- Driving sideLeft
- UN memberNo
- LandlockedNo
- IndependentNo
- DemonymMacanese
Maps & downloads
The flag image above is available in both raster and vector format. For a full-resolution download, right-click and save the linked file. Map links open in your preferred mapping provider so you can zoom into specific regions or plan a route. For deeper terrain and elevation data, our geographic resource library collects the best free atlases.
About this profile
This page is one of 250 country profiles on MapVista. The structured facts are sourced from open datasets that aggregate official records — see our methodology for the full list of sources and how we handle disputes, succession, and edge cases. The narrative paragraphs are written to give context to the numbers, but the figures themselves are not invented; if a value is missing it is shown as a dash rather than a guess.
If you spot an out-of-date figure or a misclassification, please reach us via the contact page. We refresh the underlying dataset regularly and corrections are applied at the next rebuild.