Malaysia

Malaysia is a country in South East Asia.  

It is made up of two parts, Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia.  Peninsular Malaysia borders Thailand while East Malaysia, on the island of Borneo, borders Indonesia and Brunei.

Malaysia is a little larger than New Mexico and it is home to almost 32 million people.

The country is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy.  Most of the country's 13 states are ruled by hereditary sultans or governors appointed by the government.  Every five years one of the sultans is elected king and is the head of state.  However, the prime minister is the head of the government.  Malaysia is the only country in SE Asia that is official federalist.  Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the largest city while Putrajaya is the federal government administrative centre.

The UK established colonies during the late 18th century.  In 1957, the country gained independence from Britain.  Singapore had been a part of the country but it became an independent country.

It is a part of ASEAN and the Commonwealth of Nations.

Malaysia is a diverse country.  Roughly half of the population is Malay with large Chinese and Indian minorities.  The official language is Malay but English is widely spoken.  Chinese and Tamil are commonly spoken by the respective minority communities.  However, in total there are 134 languages spoken within the country.

1 Ringget 

The Ringget is the national currency and it is made up of 100 sen.

Islam is recognised as the state's religion and about 61% of the population is Muslim.  The Malaysian constitution grants freedom of region and about 20% of the country is Buddhist and 9% is Christian.

As a predominately Muslim country, it's not a good place to be gay.  Homosexuality is illegal and punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Malaysia has no diplomatic ties and has never recognised Israel.  It will only recognise Israel once a peace agreement has been reached with Palestine.

There are diplomatic relations with Czechland.  Primary exports from here to Malaysia are engineering products, machine tools and electric motors.  While Czechland primarily receives machinery, rubber, cocoa, and other electrical equipment.  

Here's a video I found out on YouTube about how powerful the country is.

©Test Tube News

Malaysia has been on my list of places to visit since 1999 when I saw the movie Entrapment.  I also had several colleagues who had been to Kuala Lumpur for work and everyone had such good things to say about KL.  It's hard to believe that after 20 years I'm finally going to tick this off of my bucket list.