Series
The Names Behind the Streets
The squares and avenues you walk through every day — Ferreira do Amaral, Coronel Mesquita, Infante D. Henrique — are named after real people. This series traces Macau's street names back to their source: governors, soldiers, navigators, and poets, turning each road sign back into a person and a chapter of the Sino-Portuguese encounter.
Street Signs as History
Macau's street names are a history book laid open across the surface of the city. Many avenues and squares are named after Portuguese historical figures — navigators who opened the sea routes east, governors and soldiers of the colonial era, and poets who wrote this small city into Portuguese-language literature.
Jorge Álvares
歐華利 · Jorge ÁlvaresA Portuguese navigator who reached the Pearl River estuary in 1513 and is regarded as among the first Portuguese to arrive in China by sea. He died near Tuen Mun on 8 July 1521. The Macau square 歐華利前地 (also rendered 區華利前地) carries his name.Read profile → and represent the pioneers who reached the East during the Age of Discovery; , , , and are a cross-section of colonial-era administration and military life; while the poets and gave Macau a fixed coordinate in Portuguese letters.
