97 Fun Facts About Malaysia

Malaysia is split into two regions by which body of water?

The South China Sea puts some 640 km of open water between the two halves, and the far side is the larger: East Malaysia has about 60% of the country's land.

The states of Sabah and Sarawak lie on which island?

Borneo is the world's third-largest island; Sabah and Sarawak cover only about its northern quarter, yet they are Malaysia's two largest states.

What is the national capital and largest city of Malaysia?

Kuala Lumpur still hosts parliament and the royal palace, but around the turn of the century most ministries moved out to a new administrative city to escape its traffic congestion.

Which planned city serves as Malaysia's federal administrative capital?

Putrajaya: the prime minister's office moved there in 1999 because government offices scattered across the congested old capital, 25 km to the north, had become hard to run.

Which Malaysian state completely surrounds the national capital?

Selangor gave the city up as a federal territory in 1974; after two later additions, three such territories now sit beside Malaysia's 13 states.

What is Malaysia's Independence Day, celebrated every 31 August, called in Malay?

Hari Merdeka: merdeka means freedom, and as the new flag went up in 1957 the crowd cried the word seven times.

Which territory left the Malaysian federation in 1965 to become an independent country?

Singapore had joined only in 1963, but friction between its leaders and the central government, sharpened by ethnic tension, led Malaysia to ask it to leave.

Malaysia's head of state is unusual because he is what?

Elected among nine hereditary rulers every five years: the rulers vote by secret ballot, though in practice the throne has passed from state to state in turn.

What is the official title of Malaysia's king?

Yang di-Pertuan Agong: the role is largely ceremonial, and a bill he declines to sign becomes law anyway 30 days after it reaches him.

Which ruler became Malaysia's king on 31 January 2024?

Ibrahim Iskandar of Johor is a motorcycle enthusiast who for years led an annual royal bike tour around his state, often on a Harley-Davidson.

Who was sworn in as Malaysia's 10th prime minister in November 2022?

Anwar Ibrahim was sacked as deputy prime minister in 1998 and jailed twice before finally reaching the top job, four years after leaving prison.

The 1MDB corruption scandal implicated which former Malaysian prime minister?

Najib Razak lost the 2018 election as the scandal closed in on him, and in 2022 he began a prison sentence for corruption after losing his final appeal.

Whose 'treasure fleets' made the young port of Malacca a regular stop in the early 1400s?

Zheng He's fleets called at Malacca again and again from 1405, and Ming backing helped the young port stand up to its powerful neighbours.

Which island did the Sultan of Kedah lease to the British East India Company in 1786?

Penang: the sultan expected British military protection in return, and when none came he tried to take the island back in 1791, failed, and signed it away by treaty.

James Brooke and his successors ruled Sarawak under what title?

The White Rajahs began when Brunei rewarded the English adventurer for helping crush a rebellion; three generations held the title until Sarawak was ceded to Britain in 1946.

Which 1874 treaty established the system of British residents in the Malay states?

Pangkor: the sultan had to ask for and act on his British Resident's 'advice' on everything except Malay religion and custom, which left the adviser as the real ruler.

What did Britain call its 1948-60 jungle war against communists in Malaya?

The Emergency: insurers would not have paid plantation and mine owners for losses in a declared 'war', so the word was avoided for all 12 years.

Which prime minister launched the New Economic Policy after the 1969 race riots?

Tun Abdul Razak ran the council that governed by decree after the riots, then as prime minister launched the 1971 policy to cut poverty and end the link between race and economic role.

The 15th-century Malacca Sultanate was founded by which runaway king of Singapura?

Parameswara found refuge in what was then a small fishing village, and within a century his port had grown into one of the great trading hubs of Asia.

What is the tallest mountain in Malaysia?

Mount Kinabalu is sacred to local people, some of whom blamed a deadly 2015 earthquake on tourists who had stripped naked at the summit days earlier.

Sarawak Chamber, the world's largest known cave chamber by area, lies in which Malaysian national park?

Gunung Mulu: its caves also shelter millions of bats, which stream out of Deer Cave at dusk in long ribbons to hunt.

What is the longest river in Malaysia?

The Rajang is the main highway of central Sarawak, a region with few roads: ocean-going ships can sail 130 km upriver to the town of Sibu.

The Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, separates Peninsular Malaysia from which island?

Sumatra: the channel between them is the shortest sea route between India and China, which is why so much of the world's shipping funnels through it.

The southernmost point of mainland Asia, Tanjung Piai, is in which Malaysian state?

Johor: the cape is a protected mangrove park, and the heavy shipping traffic sailing past is eating away its shore, through ship wash and oil spills alike.

Which chain of peaks forms the backbone of Peninsular Malaysia, dividing its east and west coasts?

The Titiwangsa Mountains, also called the Main Range, split the peninsula's rivers too: the Perak river runs off them to the west coast and the Pahang to the east.

Malaysian forests host Rafflesia, notable as what?

The largest flowers in the world: Rafflesia has no leaves, stems or roots, living as a parasite inside jungle vines, and its blooms smell of rotting meat to lure the flies that pollinate it.

Which big cat supports the shield on Malaysia's coat of arms?

Tiger: two of them hold up the shield, yet the Malayan tiger, the national animal, is now critically endangered in the wild.

Which Malaysian island did Jacques Cousteau call 'an untouched piece of art' after filming its reefs?

Sipadan: to protect the reefs, nobody may stay on the island any more, and divers need one of a limited number of daily permits.

After the Malays, which is the largest ethnic community in Malaysia?

Chinese: most trace their roots to migrants who left southern China during British rule, and the community still speaks several languages, including Hokkien, Cantonese and Hakka.

What term covers Malays and indigenous groups given constitutional preference in Malaysia?

Bumiputera: the constitution lets the king reserve them a share of civil-service jobs, scholarships and business licences.

Which two states plus one federal territory have non-Muslim majorities?

Nationally about 63.5 percent of the population practise Islam.

The 14th-century Terengganu Inscription Stone carries the oldest known Malay text in an adapted form of which script?

Arabic: the adapted alphabet is called Jawi, and the stone uses it to set out a ruler's proclamation of Islamic laws for his subjects.

Every Malaysian citizen is issued which biometric smart identity card at the age of 12?

MyKad: younger children carry a MyKid instead, a chip card with no photograph or fingerprints, and trade up at 12.

Hindu pilgrims converge on which site during Thaipusam?

The Batu Caves: pilgrims climb 272 steps to the temple cave past a 42.7 m gold-painted statue of Murugan, many carrying kavadi burdens as an act of penance.

Which body's survey of Sabah and Sarawak delayed Malaysia's founding in 1963?

United Nations: its survey team's report, published on 14 September, came out in favour of the plan, and Malaysia was proclaimed two days later.

Malaya won the first-ever edition, held in 1948-49, of which badminton trophy?

The Thomas Cup: Malaya won the first three editions, but Malaysia has rarely lifted it since, and its most recent title came on home courts in 1992.

Which circuit hosted Formula One's Malaysian Grand Prix every year from 1999 to 2017?

Sepang: Malaysia gave the race up after 2017, with its sports minister complaining that the cost was too high and the returns too limited.

Which Malay martial art joined UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in 2019?

Silat began as the fighting skill of Malay warriors, but it has since become a performing art as well, staged to the beat of Malay drums.

Which skyscraper ended the Petronas Towers' reign as the world's tallest building in the early 2000s?

Taipei 101: the Petronas Towers had themselves taken the title from Chicago's Sears Tower only thanks to their spires, since the Sears roof stood some 60 m higher.

Which breakfast favourite is widely considered Malaysia's national dish?

Nasi lemak, rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaf, began as a Malay dish but has long since crossed over, and the country's other communities now cook versions of their own.

Which 'king of fruits' is banned from some hotels and public transport systems in Southeast Asia?

Durian: its smell, likened to rotten onions and strong cheese, can cling to a room for days, which is why it is barred from trains and buses in several cities.

Which Malaysian lost three straight Olympic badminton singles finals?

Lee Chong Wei lost the first two finals to his great rival Lin Dan, then beat Lin in the 2016 semi-final only to fall to Chen Long in the final.

On Malaysia's flag, what does the yellow of the crescent and star represent?

Royalty: yellow is the colour of the Malay rulers, while the stripes grew from 11 to 14 when new states joined in 1963 and stayed at 14 even after one left.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished on 8 March 2014 while flying to which destination?

Beijing: instead, the jet turned back across the Malay Peninsula and flew on over the Indian Ocean, where a piece of its wing washed ashore on Réunion in 2015.

The name of Malaysia's capital city translates from Malay as what?

Muddy confluence: the Klang and Gombak rivers meet in the city centre, a spot so prone to flooding that engineers built a motorway tunnel that doubles as a storm drain.

Which French navigator proposed the terms Malaysia, Micronesia and Melanesia after an 1820s Pacific voyage?

Jules Dumont d'Urville had earlier helped France secure the Venus de Milo, and he later named Antarctica's Adélie coast, home of the Adélie penguin, after his wife.

Which European power took Malacca from the Portuguese in 1641?

The Dutch held the port until 1824, bar a wartime British occupation, then signed it over to Britain in a treaty that gave them the British post of Bencoolen in return.

Which short-lived 1946 crown-colony scheme did Malays reject over citizenship for immigrants?

The Malayan Union met such strikes, demonstrations and boycotts that the Malay party UMNO was born out of the protest, and Britain dropped the scheme in 1948.

Malaysia's currency is divided into 100 units called what?

Sen: the ringgit itself is named for the 'jagged' milled edges of the Spanish silver dollars that once circulated in the region.

Who served as Malaysia's first prime minister, from 1957 to 1970?

Tunku Abdul Rahman led the 1956 mission to London that secured Britain's pledge of independence, and Malaysians remember him as the Father of Independence.

Which prime minister served a cumulative 24 years, the longest in Malaysian history?

Mahathir Mohamad retired in 2003 after 22 years in the job, then returned in 2018, aged 92, to oust the coalition he had once led.

What was the name of Proton's first car, launched in July 1985?

Saga: Malaysia's first 'national car' was a reworked Mitsubishi Lancer, and Proton did not launch a model of its own design until 2000.

Which carmaker overtook Proton in 2006 to become Malaysia's best-selling car brand?

Perodua, short for a Malay name meaning 'second car company', began with minicars built on Daihatsu designs, and it was the best-selling Myvi that carried it past its older rival.

Which duty-free archipelago of 99 islands lies off Malaysia's northwest coast?

Langkawi: legend says a woman named Mahsuri, wrongly executed for adultery, cursed the islands with seven generations of bad luck.

Which protected area was one of the first two Malaysian entries on UNESCO's World Heritage List, in 2000?

Kinabalu Park climbs from lowland rainforest to sub-alpine scrub on a single mountainside, a spread of habitats that makes it a recognised centre of plant diversity.

The Sepilok centre near Sandakan, opened in 1964, rehabilitates which animal?

Orangutans: orphans rescued from logging sites, plantations and the pet trade are taught to survive in the wild here, then released into the surrounding forest reserve.

Which flower, called bunga raya in Malay, is Malaysia's national flower?

Hibiscus: declared the national flower in 1960, it has a humbler side too, as its petals were once used to make black shoe polish, hence its other name, the shoeblack plant.

Which Malaysian squash player was world No. 1 for a record 108 consecutive months?

Nicol David once went 17 months and 56 matches without losing, until an American, Natalie Grainger, finally beat her on home soil in a 2009 final.

Which Malaysian actress became, in 2023, the first Asian performer to win the Oscar for Best Actress?

Michelle Yeoh trained as a ballet dancer until a back injury ended that dream; a Miss Malaysia title and an advert with Jackie Chan then led her into Hong Kong action films.

Which Malaysian designer, a cobbler's son who made his first pair at 11, co-founded a luxury shoe label?

Jimmy Choo counted Princess Diana among his clients, but fell out with his business partner and sold his share of the company in 2001 to return to hand-made couture.

In 2001 Tony Fernandes bought the debt-laden airline AirAsia, two jets included, for what sum?

One ringgit: the token price, about 26 US cents, came with some US$11 million of debt, and he took the airline on just as carriers everywhere were reeling from the September 11 attacks.

Which Malaysian skyscraper, completed in 2023, became the world's second-tallest building at 678.9 m?

Merdeka 118 passed China's 632 m Shanghai Tower for second place largely thanks to its spire, which accounts for about 160 m of the total.

Which businessman founded the Genting Highlands casino resort in 1965?

Lim Goh Tong got the idea while working on a hydroelectric project in the cool Cameron Highlands, which he judged too far from the capital for most holidaymakers.

Which American silk magnate vanished while walking in the Cameron Highlands in 1967?

Jim Thompson, a former wartime intelligence officer who had turned Thai silk into a worldwide business, left his holiday cottage for a walk and no trace of him was ever found.

Which Sarawak city, the state capital, calls itself the 'Cat City' and even has a cat museum?

Kuching sounds like kucing, the Malay word for cat, so the city plays up the pun with cat statues, though where its name really came from is uncertain.

What is Malaysia's smallest state by both area and population?

Perlis is also the only Malaysian state whose ruler is styled Raja rather than Sultan, and it stayed under Siamese overlordship until a treaty handed it to Britain in 1909.

Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, was formerly known by what colonial name?

Jesselton honoured Sir Charles Jessel, a director of the chartered company that ran the territory; though bombing razed the town in World War II, it was rebuilt as the new capital.

Ipoh boomed in the late 19th century after huge deposits of what were found nearby?

Tin: migrant miners poured into the Kinta Valley, and the countryside around the city is still pocked with the pits of old open-cast mines.

What does 'tarik' mean in teh tarik, Malaysia's frothy national drink?

Pulled: the seller pours the hot tea in a long stream between two mugs held far apart, which whips up the froth and turns every order into a small show.

Which island did Sabah cede to Malaysia's federal government in 1984?

Labuan was handed over so that it could be developed as an offshore financial centre, and in 1990 the government duly declared the island a tax haven.

Which neighbour fought the 1963-66 'Konfrontasi' in opposition to Malaysia's formation?

Indonesia: President Sukarno saw the new federation as a British plot to keep colonial control and vowed to 'crush Malaysia', but the undeclared war faded once he lost power.

Which disputed island did the ICJ rule in 2008 was not Malaysian territory?

Pedra Branca: the court found the islet had once belonged to a Malay sultanate, but that title had passed to the neighbour that ran its lighthouse for decades while Malaysia stayed silent.

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor reached the ISS in 2007 aboard which nation's spacecraft?

Russia: the seat came as part of an arms deal, in which Malaysia bought 18 Russian fighter jets and Moscow agreed to train and fly a Malaysian to the station.

Which coalition's 2018 win was the first time Barisan Nasional lost federal power?

Pakatan Harapan won under a 92-year-old former prime minister who had come out of retirement to beat the very coalition he once led.

Malaysia's oldest human remains, a skull some 40,000 years old, came from which site?

Niah Caves: the 'Deep Skull' came out of a pit the excavators nicknamed Hell Trench, after the fierce afternoon heat they had to dig in.

At 2,187 m, what is the highest peak in Peninsular Malaysia?

Gunung Tahan lies deep inside the Taman Negara rainforest, so the classic route to the summit and back is a jungle trek of about seven days.

Bako National Park, founded 1957, is famed for which endangered Bornean primate?

Proboscis monkey: only the males grow the long drooping nose, which is thought to make their calls louder and so impress females; the species also swims well on partly webbed feet.

The giant bronze statue that towers over Kek Lok Si, Malaysia's largest Buddhist temple, depicts whom?

Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy: the temple around her blends the building styles of three countries, Thailand and Burma among them, a nod to the Buddhist traditions it serves.

The Sultan Abdul Samad Building, completed 1897 opposite the Padang, is in what style?

Moorish: its British architects first drew up a classical Renaissance design, but the state engineer had it reworked with arches and copper onion domes.

The melody of Negaraku, Malaysia's anthem, was originally the state anthem of which state?

Perak: its anthem's tune was also a cabaret favourite of the day, yet it was chosen over a specially written anthem by Benjamin Britten, which the government turned down.

Porta de Santiago is the surviving gateway of which Portuguese fortress in Malacca?

A Famosa was built for the conqueror Afonso de Albuquerque, and three centuries later the British demolished almost all of it, sparing only this small gatehouse.

Which British sailor founded George Town in 1786?

Francis Light named the new settlement after King George III, and his son William went on to plan the city of Adelaide in South Australia.

Pandelela Rinong, first Malaysian woman to win an Olympic medal, competes in which sport?

Diving: she carried Malaysia's flag into the London 2012 opening ceremony, then won bronze from the 10 m platform, the country's first Olympic medal outside badminton.

Azizulhasni Awang, the 'Pocket Rocketman', won Olympic medals in which cycling event?

Keirin: he is remembered for a 2011 World Cup final in Manchester, where he finished third despite a crash that drove a long wooden splinter through his calf.

Which sport, in which a rattan ball is kicked over a net, is widely regarded as Malaysia's national sport?

Sepak takraw: the name pairs sepak, Malay for kick, with takraw, the Thai word for the woven ball, and was agreed when four countries met to unify the rules in 1960.

Into which sea does the 560 km Kinabatangan, Malaysia's second-longest river, empty?

Sulu Sea: on the way there the river's lower reaches shelter pygmy elephants, and a bridge planned across them was scrapped in 2017 after David Attenborough joined the protests.

Which mammal was declared extinct in Malaysia in 2019 after its last two animals died?

Sumatran rhinoceros: the last male, Tam, died in May and the last female, Iman, in November, after attempts to breed from the pair had failed; fewer than 80 were then left worldwide.

Cartoonist Lat's best-known work, first published in 1979, is titled what?

The Kampung Boy retells Lat's own village childhood up to the day he leaves for boarding school, and it reached American readers only in 2006, 27 years after its Malaysian debut.

Who became Malaysia's first female deputy prime minister in 2018?

Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was an eye doctor with no political career until her husband was sacked and arrested in 1998; she then led his reform movement and the party that grew out of it.

As of 2024, Malaysia is the world's second-largest producer of which commodity?

Palm oil: plantations multiplied from the 1960s and 1970s, partly at the expense of rubber, the crop Malaysia's economy had long depended on.

Felix de Weldon sculpted the bronze soldiers of Malaysia's National Monument and which US landmark?

Iwo Jima Memorial: Malaysia's first prime minister saw it on a 1960 visit to the United States and enlisted its sculptor to design a monument to his own country's fallen.

The logo of Malaysia Airlines is based on which traditional object?

A kite: the emblem is a stylised wau, the decorated kite flown in Kelantan, and when the airline recoloured it in a single shade in 2012, it soon went back to the familiar two-tone design.

The Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in George Town is nicknamed for which colour?

Blue: the indigo-washed mansion was derelict before conservationists restored it in the 1990s, work that won a UNESCO heritage award in 2000.

The Crystal Mosque, opened in 2008, stands in which state capital on Peninsular Malaysia's east coast?

Kuala Terengganu: the mosque is named for the steel, glass and crystal that coat it and give it a mirror-like shine, and it stands on the island of Wan Man.

After an 1870s civil war, which Kapitan China rebuilt the mining town that became Malaysia's capital?

Yap Ah Loy found the town gutted and its mines flooded; he got the mines working again and spent $20,000 on roads linking them to the town.

Which bear, the world's smallest, is rescued from the pet trade at a centre in Sabah?

Sun bear: poachers take the cubs to sell as pets, so the centre keeps rescued bears in forest enclosures where they can relearn how to live in the wild.

Which 'Voice of Asia' singer played a solo Royal Albert Hall concert in 2005?

Siti Nurhaliza reminded the London crowd that she came from the small town of Kuala Lipis, then sang with the London Symphony Orchestra behind her.