Although administratively classified as an overseas province, Portugal's possessions in India retained the honorary title of "state".
By the 20th century, most of these territories were referred to as "colonies", but the term "overseas province" continued to be the official designation.
The Portuguese Colonial Act – passed on 13 June 1933 as one of the fundamental statutes of the Estado Novo regime led by Salazar – eliminated "overseas province" as the official designation of the territories and fully replaced it by that of "colony".
The name was made official again in 1951 as part of the policy of Salazar's government to retain the remaining colonies and to appease anticolonial demands from the United Nations.
Three years later, Portugal and China agreed to rename Macau once again as a "Chinese territory under (temporary) Portuguese administration".