The modern history of Macau starts in the early 16th century when Portuguese traders, in agreement with local Cantonese authorities and with empirial consent, established a permanent settlement on leased land of the Macau peninsula.
In its first 100 years, the settlement became a major hub for trade between Europe, China, Japan, and Mexico, as well as a center for Catholic missionaries on their way to China and Japan.
The following 200 years, between mid-17th to mid-19th century, marked a period of decline for Macau caused by incidents in Europe and Asia that negatively impacted both main sectors, commercial and religious, of Macau identity. But Macau still played an important political role, as marked for example by the very first treaty between China and the United States, signed in Macau, which effectively started Sino-US relations.
The role of Macau's shallow ports declined further with the establishment of British Hong Kong in the mid-19th century and with the emergence of modern freight ships, which could no longer berth in Macau but instead changed their routes towards Hong Kong's deep Victoria Harbour.
In the 20th century and after the Second World War, during which Macau mostly successfully tried to stay neutral, Macau began to focus more on tourism and in particular gambling.
This development then really took off after Macau's 1999 handover to China, which initiated Macau's rise to become the "Las Vegas of Asia", or more bluntly (and more accurately), "Las Vegas on steroids".
