Demographics of Macau

This article is about the demographic features of the population of Macau, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

Macau's population is 95% Chinese, primarily Cantonese and some Hakka, both from nearby Guangdong Province. The remainder are of Portuguese or mixed Chinese-Portuguese ancestry. Some Japanese, including descendants of Japanese Catholics who were expelled by shoguns, also live in Macau.

The official languages are Portuguese and Cantonese Chinese. The residents commonly (85.7%) speak Cantonese, Mandarin is spoken by 3.2% at home, about 40% are able to communicate in standard Mandarin. English and Portuguese are spoken as a first language by 1.5% and 0.6% respectively. The other popular topolect is Hokkien (Min Nan), spoken by a small percentage of the population. The creole Macanese language (Patuá or Macaista Chapado) is almost extinct.

Macau has a number of universities.

Structure of the population (01.07.2012) (Estimates) :

Immigration is an essential component of the population. Results of the 2011 Population Census indicated that 326,376 (59.1% of the total population) were born outside Macau, an increase of 3.0 percentage points over the last ten years. Analysed by place of birth, 255,186 (46.2%) were born in Mainland China, down by 1.2 percentage points from 2001. 226,127 (40.9%) were born in Macau, 19,355 (3.5%) in Hong Kong and 1,835 (0.3%) in Portugal. There were more persons born in other countries or territories as the number of non-resident workers increased. Among them, 14,544 were born in the Philippines, 7,199 in Vietnam and 6,269 in Indonesia, altogether taking up 5.1% of the total population. 1,942 were born in Europe other than Portugal, 2,252 in Americas, 959 in Africa and 672 in Oceania. Analysed by age group, 85.2% of the youth population (aged 0–14) were born in Macau, and 62.9% of those aged 35 and above were born in Mainland China.

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