Municipality of Macau

The Municipality of Macau was one of the two municipalities of Macau, along with the Municipality of Ilhas.
Its organs, the Municipal Council of Macau and the Municipal Assembly of Macau, had been abolished. The law provided for their dissolution became effective on 31 December 2001. The law also provided for the "extinction" of the provisional municipalities but had not mentioned anything about the concelhos.

History

In 1513, Portuguese explorer Jorge Álvares arrived in the Pearl River Delta, in the Shenzhen area, which he called Tamão. A Portuguese settlement was started there. By 1535 traders were allowed to anchor their ships in the harbour. In 1887, the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking was signed, allowing "the perpetual occupation and government of Macau by Portugal".
According to National Geographic, "Macau may never have existed if not for Tamão" where the Portuguese learned "how China, the Pearl River Delta, and the South China Sea worked". The settlement and Jorge Álvares "kickstarted a chain of events that ultimately spawned Macau". A large stone sculpture of Álvares stands in downtown Macau.

Former municipal organs

Following the handover of Macau to China on 20 December 1999, the municipal organs were renamed as Provisional Municipal Council of Macau and the Provisional Municipal Assembly of Macau.
The institutions were abolished on 31 December 2001 and replaced by the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau the following day.

Divisions of departments

Despite the extinção of the municípios provisórios and the dissolution of the municipal councils and assemblies in 2001, certain government departments have maintained divisions for the area of the concelho, e.g., the Departamento Policial de Macau.

Demographics

The population of the Macau Peninsula has been increasing rapidly for decades, particularly since the transfer of sovereignty to the People's Republic of China. With 45,675 inhabitants/km², Macau has one of the highest population densities of any urban area.