Malaysia

The Malay Peninsula and the Borneo coasts were shaped by maritime trade, with Hindu-Buddhist and then Muslim sultanates, of which Malacca — founded around 1400 — became the region's greatest entrepôt and the seedbed of Malay court culture, before it fell to the Portuguese in 1511, then the Dutch, then the British.

Britain assembled control of the peninsula and, in Borneo, of Sarawak (ruled for a century by the British "White Rajahs," the Brooke family) and North Borneo. Colonial rule brought large-scale Chinese immigration to the tin mines and towns and Indian, mostly Tamil, immigration to the rubber estates, permanently reshaping the population. After a harsh Japanese occupation and a communist insurgency (the "Malayan Emergency," defeated by 1960), independence came in 1957 for Malaya, and in 1963 Malaysia was formed by joining Malaya with Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah — though Singapore left in 1965.

Deadly Malay–Chinese riots in Kuala Lumpur in 1969 led to the New Economic Policy, a sweeping system of affirmative action for the Malay and Indigenous majority (the "bumiputera") that reshaped the economy and remains politically untouchable. The long-ruling UMNO-led coalition finally lost power in 2018 amid the multi-billion-dollar 1MDB corruption scandal, and the reformist figure Anwar Ibrahim became prime minister in 2022.

Malaysia is a genuinely plural society whose Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Bornean-Indigenous communities live side by side more than they blend, each with its own languages, schools, temples and mosques, festivals, and foods. Islam is the official religion and the faith of essentially all Malays and about 63 percent of the population; there are large Buddhist, Christian (strong in Sabah and Sarawak), Hindu, and Chinese-folk-religion minorities, and a dual legal system with Sharia courts for Muslims in family matters.

Shared touchstones include an all-consuming food culture, with the 24-hour Indian-Muslim mamak stall as the great social leveller; the "open house" tradition at festivals — Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas, and Sabah and Sarawak's Kaamatan and Gawai — where you visit friends of other faiths and are fed; badminton as a national obsession; and the longhouse communities of Borneo.

The country is a constitutional monarchy with an unusual rotating throne: the nine hereditary Malay rulers elect one of their number to be King of Malaysia for a five-year term. Race and religion remain sensitive in public life, and modest dress and behaviour are expected around religious sites and in the conservative east-coast states.

The Klang Valley around Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya is the economic heart, with the federal administration at Putrajaya nearby. Penang, Johor Bahru (across from Singapore), Ipoh, and Kota Kinabalu and Kuching in Borneo are the other main cities; much of the rest is oil-palm and rubber plantation, padi fields, and rainforest.

The economy is upper-middle-income and diversified: electronics and semiconductors (Penang is a major global chip-testing hub), palm oil (Malaysia and Indonesia grow most of the world's supply), oil and gas funding a large share of the federal budget through Petronas, plus manufacturing, tourism, and Islamic finance.

Daily life mixes the air-conditioned mall, the ride-hailing app, and the office with the hawker centre, the mosque or temple, the balik kampung return to the home village at festival time, and, in Borneo, the river and the longhouse.

Malaysian food is a national passion and a fusion. Nasi lemak — coconut rice with sambal, anchovies, peanuts, egg, and cucumber — is the unofficial national dish and a common breakfast. Char kway teow, Hokkien mee, Hainanese chicken rice, and other Chinese hawker classics; roti canai, banana-leaf rice, and mee goreng mamak from the Indian-Muslim kitchen; and Malay rendang, asam laksa, satay, and nasi kandar all share the same food courts.

Penang is widely held to have the best hawker food in the country; Melaka and the Peranakan (Baba-Nyonya) communities contribute a distinctive Chinese-Malay cuisine of ayam pongteh and cendol; and Borneo adds jungle ferns, river fish, and the sour-and-spicy dishes of the Kadazan-Dusun and Iban.

Teh tarik ("pulled tea"), kopi, fresh lime and sugarcane juice, and air bandung are the everyday drinks; alcohol is available but taxed heavily and less prominent than in neighbouring countries.

Kuala Lumpur has the Petronas Twin Towers and the KLCC park, the Batu Caves — a Hindu shrine in a limestone cavern up 272 painted steps — Merdeka Square, the Islamic Arts Museum, and the street food of Chinatown and Jalan Alor. George Town in Penang is a UNESCO-listed old town of Chinese shophouses, clan jetties, temples, and street art, with a food scene to match, and Melaka on the west coast adds Dutch and Portuguese colonial remains and Peranakan mansions.

The Cameron Highlands offer tea plantations and cool-climate walks; Taman Negara, one of the oldest rainforests on Earth, has a canopy walkway and river trips; Langkawi is a duty-free island of beaches, a cable car, and mangrove tours; and the Perhentian and Tioman islands have cheap diving and clear water in the non-monsoon months.

Borneo is the wild half: Mount Kinabalu, Southeast Asia's most-climbed peak, in a UNESCO park; Sabah's orangutans at Sepilok, proboscis monkeys and pygmy elephants along the Kinabatangan River, and the dive site of Sipadan; and Sarawak's Gunung Mulu (vast caves and limestone pinnacles, a World Heritage Site), Bako National Park's coastal trails, and Iban longhouse visits up the rivers.