Cotai


Cotai is a piece of reclaimed land on the top of the Seac Pai Bay between Taipa and Coloane islands in Macau that has connected two independent islands since 2005. The name, which is a portmanteau of Coloane and Taipa, can also refer to the island formed by the reclamation. In the second sense, the Special Administrative Region of Macau now consists of the Macau Peninsula, plus Cotai Island, about a mile to the south.
Cotai was created to provide Macau with a new gambling and tourism area, since Macau is so densely populated and land is scarce. Many hotels and casinos can now be found on the island. In 2006, a new hospital was founded in the Cotai area, the MUST Hospital, which is associated with the Macau University of Science and Technology Foundation.

History

In 1968, a causeway connecting Taipa and Coloane was inaugurated. Throughout the 1990s, a series of landfill works expanded this isthmus, and after the 1999 transfer of sovereignty over Macau from Portugal to China, further landfills began to expand this small isthmus further.

Hotels and casinos

The "Cotai Strip" is a name designating the entire hotel-casino area, where the term "Cotai Strip" has been trademarked by Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which coined the phrase, and only applies to its properties.
Galaxy Entertainment Group's Grand Waldo Hotel was the first casino to commence operations in Cotai, opening in May 2006. The largest property on Cotai so far is Las Vegas Sands' The Venetian Macao, which opened on August 28, 2007. Melco PBL Holdings opened the City of Dreams directly across the street from the Venetian on June 1, 2009. The construction of additional casinos and hotel projects is currently underway.

List of hotels and casinos

East of the Avenida do Aeroporto is a trapezoidal section of reclaimed land that is home to the city's only construction waste landfill, in use since 2006. In 2011, AECOM and the Macau government built a seawall to stabilize the landfill and stop the mud around it from encroaching on the Macau International Airport's piles.
The site is presently home to the transportation department's car inspection facility and driver's license exam center as well as the Macau Light Rapid Transit depot. In 2024, the government announced plans to build the city's first waste recycling center in the area, completing it by 2027.

Transportation