Coloane Village

Coloane is the southernmost island of Macau, connected to Taipa by the Cotai reclamation and to the Macau peninsula by a further causeway. The island retains more forested hillside and undeveloped coastal land than anywhere else in Macau — a consequence of slower development pressure and the topographic difficulty of building on the steep slopes of Coloane Alto.

The Chapel of St Francis Xavier, on the village square, is a small white-walled Catholic chapel built in 1928 to house relics from the missionary history of East Asia — including a fragment of the arm bone of St Francis Xavier (the Jesuit missionary who died on the island of Shangchuan south of Guangzhou in 1552) and a collection of bones of Japanese and Vietnamese Christian martyrs from the 17th-century persecutions. The chapel is a modest building, but the relics give it an unusual place in the history of Christianity in Asia.

Tam Kong Temple, at the eastern end of the village, is a Cantonese sea-deity temple with a remarkable collection of votive offerings — ship models, fishing implements, and the ritual paraphernalia of a working fishing community. The temple is one of the few active places of Cantonese folk religion in Macau with a genuinely non-touristic congregation.

Hac Sa (Black Sand) Beach, on the eastern coast of Coloane, is the only substantial beach in Macau — a 250-metre arc of dark volcanic sand backed by coastal woodland. The beach is quiet on weekdays and moderately used by local families at weekends. Fernando's Restaurant, a short walk from the beach, has been serving Portuguese food in the same location since 1988 and is one of the most characterful restaurants in Macau.