Taipa

T1A1I1P3A1
/ˈtaɪ̯.pɐ/

proper noun

An island of Macau, linked to Coloane via Cotai and itself made up of two former islets, Taipa Grande and Taipa Pequena.

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Meanings

proper noun
  1. An island of Macau, linked to Coloane via Cotai and itself made up of two former islets, Taipa Grande and Taipa Pequena.

    To the south of the main part of Macau, a bridge spanning a mile and a half of water leads to the island of Taipa, and a causeway connects Taipa to the other island, Coloane.

    1986 January 12, Rudy Maxa, “Magical Macau, Gateway to China”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 Sep 2023
    5 more examples

    Macao, at the mouth of the Canton river, contained, with the dependent islands of Taipa and Coloane, 74,568 Chinese, 3,106 native Portuguese, 615 Portuguese from the Continent and 177 from the islands, and 161 foreigners.

    1899, “Portugal”, in Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1898 (Third Series), volume III (XXXVIII), New York: D. Appleton and Company, page 649, column 2

    Including two small islands—Taipa and Coloane—the whole colony totals only six square miles, but it supports some 300,000 people. About 99 percent are Chinese, many of them refugees.

    1953 May, George W. Long, “Macau, a Hole in the Bamboo Curtain”, in National Geographic Magazine, volume CIII, number 5, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 679, column 1

    The property is on Taipa, an island off the Macao peninsula, connected by a bridge. Most of the region’s casinos are on the peninsula, while Taipa is known as a residential area, and favored by expatriates. The island is about an hour from Hong Kong by ferry.

    2010 April 27, Jeff Vandam, “House Hunting in ... China”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 29 Apr 2010, International Real Estate

    Taipa was once two islands that were slowly joined together by silt from the Pearl River. A similar physical joining has happened to Taipa and Coloane because of land reclamation from the sea. The new strip of land joining the two islands is known as Cotai (from Coloane and Taipa).

    2017 May, Emily Matchar, Piera Chen, “Macau”, in Hong Kong (Lonely Planet), 17th edition, Lonely Planet Global Limited, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 192

    It’s hard to imagine now, but there were once three mountainous, verdant islands between Macau and mainland China. The Portuguese named them Dom João, Montanha and Lapa. Later the islands became known in Chinese as Xiao (Little) Hengqin, Da (Big) Hengqin and Wanzai, respectively. The two Hengqins, which faced Coloane and Taipa, were eventually joined by land reclamation to form a single island while Wanzai, a mere few hundred metres from Macau’s Inner Harbour (Porto Interior), saw its inclines levelled enough to become a peninsula.

    2021 November 21, “On Chinese islands next to Macau, great stories of pirates, typhoons and war played out”, in South China Morning Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 21 Nov 2021

    Synonyms: Dangzai

Synonyms & antonyms

proper nounAn island of Macau, linked to Coloane via Cotai and itself made up of two former islets, Taipa Grande and Taipa Pequena.

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Origin

  1. Portuguesetaipa
  2. EnglishTaipa

From Portuguese taipa, understood as a reference to mudflats.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Chinese Cantonese 氹仔
  • 氹仔 (tam⁵ zai²)island
Chinese Mandarin 氹仔
  • 氹仔 (Dàngzǎi)island
Portuguese Taipa
  • Taipaisland

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

Taipa. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Taipa

MLA

“Taipa.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Taipa. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Taipa,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Taipa.

Source: Taipa on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.