Tamão
Sign in to saveTamão () was a trade settlement set up by the Portuguese on an island in the Pearl River Delta, China. This was the first time Europeans reached China via the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope. The settlement lasted from 1514 to 1521, when the Portuguese were expelled by the Ming dynasty navy.
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Tamão () was a trade settlement set up by the Portuguese on an island in the Pearl River Delta, China. This was the first time Europeans reached China via the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope. The settlement lasted from 1514 to 1521, when the Portuguese were expelled by the Ming dynasty navy.
== Location == In 1514, the Portuguese explorer Jorge Álvares arrived on the Chinese coast at an island in the Pearl River Delta, which they called "Tamão". Many researchers take the name "Tamão" as a corruption of "Tunmen" (), the name for what is now the western Hong Kong and Shenzhen area. Chinese sources state that the Portuguese settled around the Tunmen Inlet (), but the current whereabouts of the Tunmen Inlet is unknown, so the precise location of the Portuguese settlement remains a matter of debate among historians.