Macau Place Names Explained

Having blogged samples of my books on English place names and also examined the etymologies of the nations of the world and their respective capitals I thought it time I cast my net a little wider. As English place names share some links to other tongues it would be interesting to see if any of the elements contributing to our place names could be found elsewhere. Continuing an alphabetical tour of the world and a look at the largest Macau places.

Ilha Verde is simply 'the green island'.

Toi San translates to 'table hill'.

Hipodromo or 'horse farm' would more likely be seen as 'Hippodrome' in Europe.

Areia Preta tells us it can be found in 'black sand'.

Bairro Fai Chi Kei is, rather intriguingly, from 'chopsticks base'.

Iao Hon translates as 'blessing the Han'.

Taipa comes from the Chinese pronunciation of tiam-a, originally meaning 'cess pit'.

Coloane is from the Portuguese influence of the name Gwo Lou Waan 'passing road ring'.

Note the spellings of the places are English as the piece is written in English.