Malay Peninsula

Locator map

The Malay Peninsula (Malay: Semenanjung Tanah Melayu) is a major peninsula located in Southeast Asia. It runs approximately north-south and contains the most southerly point of the Asian mainland. Its narrowest point is the Isthmus of Kra.

The coastal waters are (clockwise from northeast) the Gulf of Thailand, the South China Sea (opposite Borneo), the Straits of Johor (opposite Singapore), the Straits of Malacca (opposite Sumatra) and the Andaman Sea.

The area is divided politically:
* the northwest is the extreme south part of Myanmar
* the central region and northeast is the south part of Thailand
* the south is the part of Malaysia called Peninsular Malaysia or West Malaysia (which should not be confused with the larger Malay Peninsula).

The Malay term Tanah Melayu is still occasionally used in political discourse to describe uniting all Malay people on the peninsula under one Malay nation, although this ambition was largely realized with the creation of Malaysia. There however remains a Malay majority in southern Thailand, as the area was formerly part of the Pattani kingdom, a Malay kingdom. There is also a Malay minority in Singapore, an island with a Chinese majority that the British leased from the Sultanate of Johor in 1819.

The west coast of the peninsula was especially popular among seafaring Bugis, Chinese and Indian as a stopover, leading to increased migration of the people to set up visible coastal settlements in the thirteenth century.

The Malay Peninsula was known as Chersonesus Aurea in ancient times by Europeans.

See also

*Malay archipelago
*Titiwangsa Mountains