In 1511, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach the city of Guangzhou by the sea, and they settled on its port for a commercial monopoly of trade with other nations. They were later expelled from their settlements, but they were allowed the use of Macau, which was also occupied in 1511, and to be appointed in 1557 as the base for doing business with Guangzhou. The quasi-monopoly on foreign trade in the region would be maintained by the Portuguese until the early seventeenth century, when the Spanish and Dutch arrived.