Malaysia

Territory in southeast Asia, ruled since 1963 by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the Prime Minister of Malaysia

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Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of 13 states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two similarly sized regions, Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand in the north and maritime borders with Singapore in the south, Vietnam in the northeast and Indonesia in the west. East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. Kuala Lumpur is the national capital and largest city while Putrajaya is the seat of federal government. With a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the world's 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia. In the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries, with large numbers of endemic species.

Geographical type: Territory

Latitude: 2.5° N — Longitude: 112.5° E

Area: 330,803 km²

ISO 3166-2 code: MY

Measures of Freedom

Economic Freedom Summary Index, Economic Freedom of the World, 16 Oct 2024
2022 overall score: 7.56, rank: 29

Human Freedom Index [PDF], The Human Freedom Index 2023: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom
2021: 6.66, Rank: 89, Personal freedom: 6.28, Economic freedom: 7.19

Malaysia | Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2024
2016: Status: Partly Free, Aggregate Score: 45, Political Rights: 4, Civil Liberties: 4

Prime Minister Najib Razak struggled during 2015 to suppress mounting criticism over mismanagement of and possible embezzlement from the state-owned development fund 1MDB. Najib denied any wrongdoing and took steps to remove potential threats within the ruling party, in part through a reorganization of his cabinet. A coalition of civil society organizations and opposition parties known as Bersih (Clean) organized a multicity protest in August, calling for Najib's resignation as well as electoral reforms and anticorruption measures.

Articles

Christmas in Malaysia, by Justin Raimondo, 23 Dec 2005
Raimondo's impressions of Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia where he went as an invited speaker at the Perdana Global Peace Forum

Malaysia is the virtual incarnation of religious and ethnic diversity, a veritable melting pot of racial and devotional groups that somehow manage to live in relative harmony far beyond anything I have seen even in that paradigmatic paragon of multiculturalism, California ... Here is an "Islamic" country where a gigantic Christmas tree sits in the lobby of the hotel I'm staying at ... Here is a city where the nightlife puts San Francisco's to shame ... The food is fabulous: Malay (spicy, somewhat Thai-like), Arab ..., Chinese (you haven't lived until you've sampled the pleasures of Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown) ...