Macao recorded the world highest population density of 17,309 per square kilometer on June 30, according to official statistics issued here on Thursday.

The figures from the Statistics and Census Service showed that the region's resident population reached 476,000 on the date, a year-on-year increase of 4.1 percent.

The special administrative region's population has risen 46,400,or 10.8 percent, since 1999 when it returned to the motherland, according to the statistics.

Some 96.5 percent of Macao's residents are ethnic Chinese and the remainder includes some 8,000 local-born people of mixed Portuguese and Asian ancestry, 2,000 ethnic Portuguese and 6,000 Filipinos, the figures showed.

Soure: Xinhua