Macau Old Christian Cemetery Travel Guide

Scenic spot introduction:

The Christian Cemetery is located on the side of the Camões Park in Macau’s Place des Camões. Formerly known as the East India Company Cemetery, burials have long been stopped and it has become a well-preserved Macau monument. Its quiet environment attracts many foreign tourists to come and pay their respects.

Attractions distribution:

The Old Christian Cemetery in Macau was established by the British East India Company in 1821 to solve the problem of lack of resting place for Protestants at that time. Before that, the Catholic Church did not want to see pagans buried within the city walls, and the Chinese did not allow foreigners to be buried north of the Border Gate. Merchants from Britain, the United States and Nordic countries had to secretly bury their ancestors between the city walls and the Border Gate, fearing that they would be discovered by the Chinese and cause conflicts, or even destroy the graves and bodies after leaving. The matter was finally resolved after Morrison's wife Mary died in 1821. Morrison was an employee of the East India Company at the time, so he asked the East India Company to apply to the Portuguese Macau authorities to turn the current site into a cemetery. Later, all foreigners could rest here, and the remains originally buried in other places were also moved here, so some tombstones are older than the year the cemetery was built. In 1857, the City Hall prohibited the burial of any dead in the urban area, so the cemetery was closed and has been preserved intact to this day.

Scenic spot qualifications:

World Heritage

Scenic spot features:

Cultural tours, historical tours, churches, cemeteries