Malaysia is a modern concept, created in the second half of the 20th century. However, contemporary Malaysia regards the entire history of Malaya and Borneo, spanning thousands of years back to prehistoric times, as its own history.
Perak is a state of Malaysia on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Perak has land borders with the Malaysian states of Kedah to the north, Penang to the northwest, Kelantan and Pahang to the east, and Selangor to the south. Thailand's Yala and Narathiwat provinces both lie to the northeast. Perak's capital city, Ipoh, was known historically for its tin-mining activities until the price of the metal dropped, severely affecting the state's economy. The royal capital remains Kuala Kangsar, where the palace of the Sultan of Perak is located. As of 2018, the state's population was 2,500,000. Perak has diverse tropical rainforests and an equatorial climate. The state's mountain ranges belong to the Titiwangsa Mountains, which is part of the larger Tenasserim Hills system that connects Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia.
Malays are an Austronesian ethnoreligious group native to eastern Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and coastal Borneo, as well as the smaller islands that lie between these locations. These locations are today part of the countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, southern part of Thailand, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.
The Javanese are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the central and eastern part of the Indonesian island of Java. With more than 100 million people, Javanese people are the largest ethnic group in both Indonesia and in Southeast Asia as a whole. Their native language is Javanese, it is the largest of the Austronesian languages in number of native speakers and also the largest regional language in Southeast Asia. The Javanese as the largest ethnic group in the region have dominated the historical, social, and political landscape in the past as well as in modern Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
Malay Singaporeans are Singaporeans of Malay ancestry, including those from the Malay Archipelago. They constitute approximately 13.5% of the country's citizens, making them the second largest ethnic group in Singapore. Under the Constitution of Singapore, they are recognised by the government as the indigenous people of the country, with Malay as the national language of Singapore.
The term "British Malaya" loosely describes a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore that were brought under British hegemony or control between the late 18th and the mid-20th century. Unlike the term "British India", which excludes the Indian princely states, British Malaya is often used to refer to the Federated and the Unfederated Malay States, which were British protectorates with their own local rulers, as well as the Straits Settlements, which were under the sovereignty and direct rule of the British Crown, after a period of control by the East India Company.
Malay was first used in the first millennia known as Old Malay, a part of the Austronesian language family. Over a period of two millennia, Malay has undergone various stages of development that derived from different layers of foreign influences through international trade, religious expansion, colonisation and developments of new socio-political trends. The oldest form of Malay is descended from the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the earliest Austronesian settlers in Southeast Asia. This form would later evolve into Old Malay when Indian cultures and religions began penetrating the region, most probably using the Kawi and Rencong scripts, some linguistic researchers say. Old Malay contained some terms that exist today, but are unintelligible to modern speakers, while the modern language is already largely recognisable in written Classical Malay of 1303 CE.
The Banjar or Banjarese are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the Banjar regions in the southeastern Kalimantan regions of Indonesia. Nowadays, Banjarese diaspora can be found in neighbouring Banjar regions as well; including Kotabaru Regency, the southeastern regions of Central Kalimantan, southernmost regions of East Kalimantan, and some provinces of Indonesia in general. The Banjarese diaspora community also can be found in neighbouring countries of Indonesia, such as Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Native Indonesians, also known as Pribumi or Bumiputra, are Indonesians whose ancestral roots lie mainly in the archipelago, distinguished from Indonesians of known (partial) foreign descent, like Chinese Indonesians (Tionghoa), Arab Indonesians, Indian Indonesians, Japanese Indonesians and Indo-Europeans (Eurasians).
Greater Indonesia also Known as Indonesian Irredentism was a political concept that sought to bring the so-called Malay race together by uniting the territories of Dutch East Indies with the British Malaya and British Borneo. It was espoused by students and graduates of Sultan Idris Training College for Malay Teachers in the late 1920s, and individuals from Sumatra and Java, including Mohammad Natsir and Sukarno, on September 28, 1950. Indonesia Raya was adopted as the name of what later became the Indonesian national anthem in 1924. While the definition of Greater Indonesia is consistent, the definition of Greater Malay and related concept of Malay world and realm are varied from the synonym of Greater Indonesia to Peninsular-focused dominance.
Malaysian Malays are Malaysians of Malay ethnicity whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in the Malay world. According to the 2023 population estimate, with a total population of 17.6 million, Malaysian Malays form 57.9% of Malaysia's demographics, the largest ethnic group in the country. They can be broadly classified into two main categories; Anak Jati and Anak Dagang.
Peninsular Malaysia, historically known as Malaya, also known as West Malaysia or the "Malaysian Peninsula", is the western part of Malaysia that comprises the southern part of the Malay Peninsula on Mainland Southeast Asia and the nearby islands. Its area totals approximately 132,490 km2 (51,150 sq mi), which is nearly 40% of the total area of the country; the other 60% is in East Malaysia on the island of Borneo.
Malaysian Telugus, consists of people of full or partial Telugu descent who were born in or immigrated to Malaysia. Most Malaysian Telugus are descended from migrants from Madras Presidency during the colonial period. While the ancestors of most Malaysian Telugus originate from what is now Andhra Pradesh, substantial recent numbers originated from the states of Telangana, Orissa and Bengal. While most Telugus came to Malaysia as crop labourers, some were professionals and traders who arrived as refugees. In the 1930s, anti-Indian riots in Burma resulted in large numbers of ethnic Telugus fleeing from Burma either back to India, or to Malaya. Another wave of Telugu migration from Burma occurred during World War II, when the Japanese invaded Burma.
Johor, also spelled as Johore, is a state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. It shares borders with Pahang, Malacca and Negeri Sembilan to the north. Johor shares maritime borders with Singapore to the south and Indonesia to both the west and east. As of 2020, the state's population is 4.01 million, making it the second most populous state in Malaysia. Johor Bahru is the capital city and the economic centre of the state, Kota Iskandar is the state administrative centre and Muar serves as the royal capital.
Indonesian citizens in Malaysia are Indonesian citizens who live and work in Malaysia. Indonesians in Malaysia comprised a large numbers of labour and domestic workers. It is estimated that 83 percent of migrant workers in Malaysia are Indonesian. There are also local Malay which is also partially Indonesian by descent, and they are considered as Bumiputera by racial term.
Malays played a significant role in pre-Hispanic Philippine history. Malay involvement in Philippine history goes back to the Classical Era with the establishment of Rajahnates as well as the Islamic era, in which various sultanates and Islamic states were formed in Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, and around Manila.
The Arab Malaysians consists of people of full or partial Arab descent who were born in or immigrated to Malaysia.
The Indonesian Malaysians are Malaysian citizens of Indonesian ancestry. Today, there are many Malaysian Malays who have lineage from the Indonesian archipelago and have played an important role in the history and contributed to the development of Malaysia, they have been assimilated with other Malay communities and are grouped as part of the foreign Malays or anak dagang in terms of race. The Malaysian census does not categorize ethnic groups from the Indonesian archipelago as a separate ethnic group, but rather as Malay or Bumiputera.
The Javanese diaspora is the demographic group of descendants of ethnic Javanese who emigrated from the Indonesian island of Java to other parts of the world. The Javanese diaspora includes a significant population in Suriname, with over 13% of the country's population being of Javanese ancestry. Other major enclaves are found in Australia, French Guiana, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Caledonia, Singapore, South Africa, and Sri Lanka.
The Minangkabau Malaysians are citizens of the Malaysia whose ancestral roots are from Minangkabau of central Sumatra. This includes people born in the Malaysia who are of Minangkabau origin as well as Minangkabau who have migrated to Malaysia. Today, Minangkabau comprise about 989,000 people in Malaysia, and Malaysian law considers most of them to be Malays. They are majority in urban areas, which has traditionally had the highest education and a strong entrepreneurial spirit. The history of the Minangkabau migration to Malay peninsula has been recorded to have lasted a very long time. When the means of transportation were still using the ships by down the rivers and crossing the strait, many Minang people migrated to various regions such as Negeri Sembilan, Malacca, Penang, Kedah, Perak, and Pahang. Some scholars noted that the arrival of the Minangkabau to the Malay Peninsula occurred in the 12th century. This ethnic group moved in to peninsula at the height of the Sultanate of Malacca, and maintains the Adat Perpatih of matrilineal kinships system in Negeri Sembilan and north Malacca.
