Economyc. 1557

Portuguese Settle in Macau

Portuguese merchants began to reside at Macau on the Pearl River estuary with Ming permission. Macau became a hub of trade linking China, Japan and Europe and a base for Christian missions.

Partly as a reward for helping suppress pirates, Portuguese merchants were allowed around 1557 to stay at Macau in return for an annual ground rent. Macau prospered on the carrying trade, exchanging Canton silk for Japanese silver from Nagasaki, and became the gateway through which Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci entered China. By an 1887 treaty with the Qing, Portugal gained the right to govern Macau in perpetuity; Macau was returned to China in 1999.

Show on the map

The map in 1557

Open the full map

OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap contributors

States and rulers at the time: Portuguese Macau · established
Ming — Jiajing Emperor
Places: Macau

Before and after

Earlier: 1550 Sugar Plantations in Brazil
Later: 1565 Manila Galleon Trade

Themes that include this event

The Age of Discovery1415 – 1600
From Ceuta to the Manila galleons — two centuries in which European ships crossed the oceans and bound the world together by sea
Ming, Qing and Edo Japan1500 – 1800
The age when the Ming, shaken by northern raiders, southern pirates and the silver economy, fell to Li Zicheng’s rebels, and the Manchu Qing reached its greatest extent and prosperity under Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong — as Japan was unified out of the Warring States into the Edo shogunate’s bakuhan order and closed country, and Joseon, after two great wars, met its neighbours through embassies to Edo and the Northern Learning