Malaysia

Malaysia consists of two regions divided by the South China Sea: Peninsular Malaysia, and east Malaysia (on the island of Borneo). Its total land area is about 329,750 square kilometers. The total population is about 25 million, of which 20 million live in Peninsular Malaysia. The population growth rate is 1.78 percent, with a birth rate of 22.86 births per 1,000 people. The capital city (and largest city, with 1.5 million people) is Kuala Lumpur. The prime minister's office relocated to Putrjaya in 1999, but the parliament still meets in Kuala Lumpur.

In 1948 the British-ruled territories on Peninsular Malaysia formed the Federation of Malaysia, which gained independence from the United Kingdom within the Commonwealth on August 31, 1957. In 1963 the Federation was expanded with the admission of the British colonies of Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak, and was renamed Malaysia. Singapore left Malaysia in 1965. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy: the nominal head of state is the king of Malaysia, who is selected for five-year terms from among the nine sultans of the Malay states (four states, Melaka, Penang, Sabah, and Sarawak, have governors appointed by the government, and do not participate in the selection). Malaysia has a bicameral parliament consisting of an elected lower house and a nonelected upper house. In 2003, Premier Mahathir bin Mohamad retired after 22 years as the prime minister in favor of his deputy, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

The official language is Malay. The population is classified ethnically as: Malay 50.4 percent, Chinese 23.7 percent, non-Malay indigenous (mostly in east Malaysia) 11 percent, Indian (mostly Tamil) 7.1 percent, and other, 7.8 percent. The Malay are by constitution Muslims, and Islamic law is applied to Muslims in matters of family law. Muslims are 60.4 percent of the population, Buddhists 19.2 percent, Christians 9.1 percent, and Hindus 6.3 percent.

The Malaysian climate is tropical, and characterized by annual southwest monsoons from May to September and northeast monsoons from November to February. Peninsular Malaysia is cut by a mountain range that separates the narrow eastern coast from the fertile western plains. The highest peaks are Gunong Tahan (2,190 meters) and Gunong Korbu (2,183 meters). East Malaysia is composed of alluvial and swampy coastal plains, and the hinterland of areas of rolling rain forests interspersed with mountain ranges. The highest peak is Gunung Kinabalu, at 4,095 meters above sea level.

From the early 1970s to the late 1990s Malaysia transformed itself from a producer of raw materials to a manufacturer and exporter of industrial goods, especially computers and consumer electronics. Because of its reliance on exports, the Asian economic crisis of 1997 hit Malaysia hard. [Page 1084]In the early 2000s the economy recovered, and in 2004 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by seven percent, and in 2005 by five percent. In 2005 agriculture accounted for 7.2 percent of total GDP, industry 33.3 percent, and services 59.5 percent; 14.5 percent of the labor force works in agriculture, 36 percent in industry, and 49.5 percent in the service sectors. Strong growth beginning in the 1980s resulted in labor scarcity, which attracted an estimated two million migrant workers from Indonesia (half of them illegal).

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