Macau · Macau
Areia Preta, Macau — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Areia Preta is an industrial and residential district in the north-east of the Macau peninsula, built on a bay that has been filled since the 1930s.
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Where to stay in Areia Preta
How the choice of base plays out on the ground.
Two roads divide the district in two. The Avenida de Venceslau de Morais and the Rua dos Pescadores separate the industry to the south from the mixed commercial and residential ground to the north. Estates fill the northern half.
Tung Wah San Chuen, Hoi Bun Garden and seven white blocks of public and private housing were the first built, with Polytec Garden and other large estates added later. This is the most crowded part of the peninsula.
About Areia Preta
What are the main landmarks in Areia Preta?
The Oriental Pearl stands at the water's edge. It is the monument to friendship between China and Portugal, and the sea in front of it is where the bridge from Hong Kong and Zhuhai reaches Macau. A power station anchors the industry.
The Macau power station was the centre of the plan that turned this ground into an industrial area after the 1960s, and the sewage works and the service centres of the main car marques stand around it. Two bridges bound the district. The Friendship Bridge begins at the south-eastern end and the Barrier Gate closes the north-western one.
What is the history of Areia Preta?
Areia Preta was a bay. Filling began in the 1930s, and after the 1960s the ground was developed to plan as a substantial industrial area with the power station at its centre. The residential ground came later.
It was reclaimed in two stages from the 1980s, which is why the housing is newer than the factories south of it. The name has two written forms. The characters for bay and for ring are both official, because the northern part of the old water carried one and the whole stretch carried the other, and a pier there took the first of them.
Confusion followed the reclamation. Both forms stayed in use in Portuguese administration and were kept after the handover, and the government has since reduced the use of one, because visitors confuse it with the black sand beach on Coloane.
Where is Areia Preta?
Areia Preta lies in the north-east of the Macau peninsula in the parish of Nossa Senhora de Fatima, between the Friendship Bridge to the south-east and the Barrier Gate to the north-west, facing Zhuhai across the water.
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Updated September 2026