Basic Conditions | Hong Kong | Macao | Taiwan Province

Basic conditions：Special Administrative Regions

Municipalities Directly Under the Central Government
Provinces
Autonomous Regions
Special Administrative Regions

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
    

Called "Gang" for short, Hong Kong is situated east of the Pearl River estuary and south of the Shenzhen River in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, along the coast of the South China Sea. Comprising Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories and neighboring islands, it covers 1,103.72 square km. According to the statistics provided by the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Regional Government, at the end of 2004, the region had a population of 6.8955 million, of whom 6.6876 million are permanent residents and 207,900 are migrant inhabitants. And this figure does not include the number of visitors, which stood at 359,200 by the end of 2004.

  

Macao Special Administrative Region

    

Called "Ao" for short, Macao is situated on a peninsula on the western banks of the Pearl River estuary. Encompassing Taipa and Coloane islands, it covers around 27.3 square km. The number of Macao's residents was estimated at 454,000 at the end of 2004, of which 95 percent are ethnic Chinese and 5 percent are ethnic Portuguese and locally born residents of mixed Portuguese and Asian extraction. Macao citizens enjoy the same rights as those locally born ethnic Portuguese residents. Macao's official language is Portuguese, Cantonese and English are also quite popular. Putonghua (Mandarin) has also begun to gain popularity.