Thinking about traveling to Malaysia or heard about Malaysia and have no idea where it is? That’s okay! Malaysia is not exactly the biggest global powerhouse and has less historical significance compared to our Asian counterparts with regards to the Western world.
Today we’ll dive deeper to where Malaysia is, and its geographical significance in the world stage.
Malaysia’s location
Credit: World Atlas
Malaysia is in Southeast Asia. To make that simpler: Heard of Thailand? Heard of Singapore? Well, Malaysia is a neighbor of those countries.
Malaysia is just above the equator of the Earth. Think the position Colombia or Venezuela of South America, but in East Asia. That means Malaysia’s climate is hot and humid all year round.
Also read: Best and worst times to visit Malaysia by weather
Map of Malaysia
Credit: World Atlas
Malaysia is split into two regions – Peninsular Malaysia on the left (West) and East Malaysia on the right (East). Pensnisular Malaysia shares a border with Thailand and Singapore, while East Malaysia sits on the Borneo Island, sharing borders with Indonesia and Brunei.
How Malaysia’s geography shaped the country today
Before the industrial revolution, Malaysia’s geography played an important role in shaping the country as it is today.
In short, Malaysia is in a very strategic location in Southeast Asia, as it is surrounded by the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca. Back then, traders wanted to travel from India to China by boat, both the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca were the “expressways” of this route. Malaysia conveniently became a rest-stop for many traders, so it was a busy trade zone! We were even named the Golden Peninsular.
As you can imagine, this attracted colonizers too. Malaysia was colonized by the Dutch, Portuguese, British, and the Japanese.
With that, mass migration happened for centuries mainly from India and China as laborers. Eventually, these migrants localized and became Malaysians.
Today, Malaysia is a multicultural and diverse country, with many religions, languages, and beliefs – all living under the same roof. Despite that, the country is unified, and we all exist in peace. This was from centuries of sociological development, but we can say that the country’s geography played a huge part in it too.
I hope you learned a bit more about Malaysia’s geography, and understanding its brief history gives you some context on how it’s shaped the Malaysia you will travel to very soon.
