Macau · Macau
Lai Chi Vun, Macau — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Lai Chi Vun is a village in southwest Coloane, Macau, named for its lychees and its bowl-shaped bay, beside the territory's largest surviving shipyards.
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Where to stay in Lai Chi Vun
Where the beds are, and what that means for the visit.
Coloane village lies just to the south. Lai Chi Vun sits between it and Tin Pun to the east, with its own small bay to the west facing the Hengqin campus of the University of Macau across the Canal dos Patos. A pier stands at the road's end.
The Coloane pier was once the only way in and out of the island, and the government rebuilt it in 2001. Free shuttle buses run at weekends.
About Lai Chi Vun
What are the main landmarks in Lai Chi Vun?
The shipyard area is the monument here. Building began in the 1950s, and what survives is the largest shipyard ground in Macau and one of the more substantial shipbuilding heritage sites in southern China. Its value is not only the sheds.
The mid-century shipbuilding craft, the village life that grew from the trade and the relation of the whole area to water and hill are all part of what was assessed. Five lots opened in 2023. The area from X11 to X15 was brought back into use on 24 June that year over about forty thousand square metres, with exhibitions, a market, performances and a display of saws and shipbuilding tools.
A Portuguese bungalow holds the customs office. It stands in a compound at the western end of the road, above the pier square.
What is the history of Lai Chi Vun?
Shipbuilding began here in the 1950s. The yards grew into the largest such ground in Macau, and the village took its shape from the trade. Distance emptied it.
Lai Chi Vun is cut off from the urban area, and its people have grown fewer over the years. Civic groups asked for protection in 2017. They submitted a case on 22 March that year asking the Cultural Affairs Bureau to begin the classification procedure for the shipyard area, and the bureau opened it and held a public consultation.
Scholars read that as civic awareness. The argument was that people were not passive but able to discuss and even criticise the administration's cultural policy, and that the administration in turn gave those voices a real channel. A pilot plan came in 2022.
It was announced on 7 June and covered five lots, keeping the shipyard structure and sawing machine at one, rebuilding two unstable timber sheds in steel to the same roof and span, and leaving two as open space.
Where is Lai Chi Vun?
Lai Chi Vun lies in the south-west of Coloane in Macau, east of its own bay on the Canal dos Patos, with Tin Pun to the east and Coloane village to the south.
More areas in Macau
Updated September 2026