macau

the reason is: chinese tourists.

with wealth increasing in china, more and more chinese people can afford to travel. and for them all the major asian cities are just a stone's throw away. travelling there is easier and more affordable than taking a long flight going overseas. in fact, in 2014, 90% of the 117 million chinese tourists who visited places outside mainland china went to other asian countries, especially to hong kong and macau (from a mainland chinese perspective, this is like travelling to another country).

so let's go back to macau - every year about 15 million tourists visit the city, more than 2/3 of them being mainland chinese. interestingly, the average visitor stays in macau less than 2 days - many arrive only on a day trip from hong kong.

from what i have seen, i guess that most visitors have only one reason why they come here: to gamble in the casinos and maybe to spend the winnings in the luxury shopping malls that are located in the same buildings. i am quite sure that many do not leave the casino-hotel-shopping-paradise compounds at all. but those who do and try to see something else, easily can find some more attractions that macau has to offer - portuguese-influenced old quarters, squares and buildings and especially some churches that are usually hard to find in other asian cities.

but for me, the real attraction of macau is found just behind these touristy places. located a litte north to macau’s main tourist landmark, the ruins of st. paul’s, are the crowded neighbourhoods of freguesia são lázaro, frequesia nossa senhora de fátima and especially freguesia santo antónio.

talking about population density, i guess, most people would immediately think about hong kong. but with an average of 6.430 people per square kilometre, hong kong isn't even near the top 30 of the most densely-populated cities. macau instead is, having 18.500 people per square kilonetre. ok, including the new territories and the outer islands hong kong is quite big and these areas are indeed not so densely populated. but again, even hong kong's most crowded district kwun tong has only about 55.000 inhabitants per square kilometre.

only? isn't this pretty crowded? it surely is...

the only 1,1 square kilometre sized district of antónio is home to 130.000 people. so, with an average of 118.000 per square kilometre, this part of macau is indeed one of the most densely populated areas of the world.

here the people live squeezed into ultra-crowded residence towers. in between you can wander through a maze of streets and small back-alleys with thousands of food stalls and shops selling all kinds of usual and unusal products for the people's daily life. except for the names, there is not much that reminds of the former portuguese influences. this is china, but indeed a macanese china, somehow different from what i have found in beijing, shanghai or kunming.

but here, not far away from shiny glittering casino facades, almost no tourist goes, including the chinese tourists (ok, at least for them it might not be very interesting to visit a chinese neighbourhood).

i have to admit, with all these numbers, this post might feel a little like a math class back in school. but hey, for most people coming to macau, only numbers do matter - roulette, black jack, baccarat...