HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Malay Peninsula ( Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The
landmass A landmass, or land mass, is a large region or area of land. The term is often used to refer to lands surrounded by an ocean or sea, such as a continent or a large island. In the field of geology, a landmass is a defined section of continen ...
runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area contains
Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia ( ms, Semenanjung Malaysia; Jawi: سمننجڠ مليسيا), or the States of Malaya ( ms, Negeri-negeri Tanah Melayu; Jawi: نڬري-نڬري تانه ملايو), also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, ...
, Southern Thailand, and the southernmost tip of
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
(
Kawthaung Kawthaung ( mnw, ကော့ပိ, , ; th, เกาะสอง; , ; ms, Pulodua, ڤولودوا) is a town located in the southernmost part of Myanmar, in the Tanintharyi Region. During British rule in Burma between 1824 and 1948, it was kn ...
). The island country of
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
also has historical and cultural ties with the region. The indigenous people of the peninsula are the Malays, an Austronesian people. The
Titiwangsa Mountains The Titiwangsa Mountains ( Malay: ''Banjaran Titiwangsa,'' بنجرن تيتيوڠسا, ), also known as ''"Banjaran Besar"'' (Big Range) by locals, is the chain of mountains that forms the backbone of the Malay Peninsula. The northern section ...
are part of the Tenasserim Hills system and form the backbone of the peninsula and the southernmost section of the central
cordillera A cordillera is an extensive chain and/or network system of mountain ranges, such as those in the west coast of the Americas. The term is borrowed from Spanish, where the word comes from , a diminutive of ('rope'). The term is most commonly us ...
, which runs from
Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
through the Kra Isthmus, the peninsula's narrowest point, into the Malay Peninsula. The Strait of Malacca separates the Malay Peninsula from the Indonesian island of
Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...
, and the south coast is separated from the island of
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
by the Straits of Johor.


Etymology

The Malay term ''Tanah Melayu'' is derived from the word ''Tanah'' (land) and ''Melayu'' ( Malays), thus it means "the Malay land". The term can be found in various Malay texts, of which the oldest dating back to the early 17th century. It is frequently mentioned in the '' Hikayat Hang Tuah'', a well-known classic tale associated with the legendary heroes of Malacca Sultanate. ''Tanah Melayu'' in the text is consistently employed to refer to the area under Malaccan dominance. In the early 16th century, Tomé Pires, a Portuguese apothecary who stayed in Malacca from 1512 to 1515, uses an almost identical term, ''Terra de Tana Malaio'', with which he referred to the southeastern part of Sumatra, where the deposed Sultan of Malacca, Mahmud Shah, established his exiled government. The 17th century's account of Portuguese historian, Emanuel Godinho de Erédia, noted on the region of ''Malaios'' surrounded by the Andaman Sea in the north, the entire Strait of Malacca in the centre, a part of Sunda Strait in the south, and the western part of
South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Ph ...
in the east. Prior to the foundation of Malacca, ancient and medieval references to a Malay peninsula exist in various foreign sources. According to several Indian scholars, the word '' Malayadvipa'' ("mountain-insular continent"), mentioned in the ancient Indian text, ''
Vayu Purana The ''Vayu Purana'' ( sa, वायुपुराण, ) is a Sanskrit text and one of the eighteen major Puranas of Hinduism. ''Vayu Purana'' is mentioned in the manuscripts of the Mahabharata and other Hindu texts, which has led scholars to ...
'', may possibly refer to the Malay Peninsula. Another Indian source, an inscription on the south wall of the
Brihadeeswarar Temple Brihadishvara Temple, called Rajarajesvaram () by its builder, and known locally as ''Thanjai Periya Kovil'' ("Thanjavur Big Temple") and ''Peruvudaiyar Kovil'', is a Shaivite Hindu temple built in a Chola architectural style located on th ...
, recorded the word ''Malaiur'', referring to a kingdom in the Malay Peninsula that had "a strong mountain for its rampart".
Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
's '' Geographia'' named a geographical region of the '' Golden Chersonese'' as ''Maleu-kolon'', a term thought to derive from Sanskrit ''malayakolam'' or ''malaikurram''. While the Chinese chronicle of the
Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fif ...
mentioned the word ''Ma-li-yu-er'', referring to a nation of the Malay Peninsula that was threatened by the southward expansion of the
Sukhothai Kingdom The Sukhothai Kingdom ( th, สุโขทัย, , IAST: , ) was a post-classical Thai kingdom ( mandala) in Mainland Southeast Asia surrounding the ancient capital city of Sukhothai in present-day north-central Thailand. The kingdom was ...
under King Ram Khamhaeng. During the same era, Marco Polo made a reference to ''Malauir'' in his travelogue, as a kingdom located in the Malay Peninsula, possibly similar to the one mentioned in the Yuan chronicle. The Malay Peninsula was conflated with
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
in old Japan, and was known by the same name. In the early 20th century, the term ''Tanah Melayu'' was generally used by the Malays of the peninsula during the rise of Malay nationalism to describe uniting all Malay states on the peninsula under one Malay nation, and this ambition was largely realised with the formation of ''Persekutuan Tanah Melayu'' ( Malay for " Federation of Malaya") in 1948.


Ecology

The Malay Peninsula is covered with
tropical moist forests Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discont ...
. Lowland forests are dominated by dipterocarp trees, while montane forests are home to evergreen trees in the beech family (
Fagaceae The Fagaceae are a family of flowering plants that includes beeches, chestnuts and oaks, and comprises eight genera with about 927 species. Fagaceae in temperate regions are mostly deciduous, whereas in the tropics, many species occur as ever ...
), Myrtle family ( Myrtaceae), laurel family ( Lauraceae), tropical conifers, and other plant families. The peninsula's forests are home to thousands of species of animals and plants. Several large endangered mammals inhabit the peninsula –
Asian elephant The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus '' Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in t ...
(''Elephas maximus''), gaur (''Bos gaurus''),
tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living Felidae, cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily pr ...
(''Panthera tigris''), sun bear (''Helarctos malayanus''),
Malayan tapir The Malayan tapir (''Tapirus indicus''), also called Asian tapir, Asiatic tapir and Indian tapir, is the only tapir species native to Southeast Asia from the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra. It has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List since ...
(''Tapirus indicus''), clouded leopard (''Neofelis nebulosa''), and siamang (''Symphalangus syndactylus''). The Sumatran rhinoceros (''Dicerorhinus sumatrensis'') once inhabited the forests, but Malaysia's last rhinoceroses died in 2019, and the species' few remaining members survive only in
Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...
. The peninsula is home to several distinct ecoregions. The Tenasserim-South Thailand semi-evergreen rain forests cover the northern peninsula, including the Tenasserim Hills and the Isthmus of Kra, and extend to the coast on both sides of the isthmus. The Kangar-Pattani floristic boundary crosses the peninsula in southern Thailand and northernmost Malaysia, marking the boundary between the large biogeographic regions of
Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...
to the north and
Sundaland Sundaland (also called Sundaica or the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of South-eastern Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It ...
and Malesia to the south. The forests north of the boundary are characterized by seasonally-deciduous trees, while the Sundaland forests have more year-round rainfall and the trees are mostly evergreen. Peninsular Malaysia is home to three terrestrial ecoregions. The
Peninsular Malaysian montane rain forests The Peninsular Malaysian montane rain forests is an ecoregion on Malay Peninsula. It occupies the mountainous spine of the peninsula in Malaysia and southernmost Thailand. It is in the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome. Geog ...
ecoregion covers the mountains above 1000 meters elevation. The lowlands and hills are in the
Peninsular Malaysian rain forests The Peninsular Malaysian rain forests is an ecoregion on Malay Peninsula and adjacent islands. It is in the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome. Geography The ecoregion covers most of the southern Malay Peninsula in Malaysia a ...
ecoregion. The
Peninsular Malaysian peat swamp forests The Peninsular Malaysian peat swamp forests is an ecoregion on Malay Peninsula, which includes portions of Malaysia. It is in the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome. Setting The ecoregion covers an area of on both the eastern ...
include distinctive waterlogged forests in the lowlands on both sides of the peninsula.Wikramanayake, Eric; Eric Dinerstein; Colby J. Loucks; et al. (2002). ''Terrestrial Ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific: a Conservation Assessment.'' Washington, DC: Island Press. Extensive
mangroves A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in sever ...
line both coasts. The Myanmar Coast mangroves are on the western shore of the peninsula, and the Indochina mangroves on the eastern shore.


See also

* Extreme points of Asia * Golden Chersonese * Malay Archipelago * Malaya (disambiguation) * Tenasserim Hills * Malaysia–Thailand border * Geography of Malaysia


References


External links

* {{Authority control Andaman Sea .02 Gulf of Thailand Landforms of Malaysia Landforms of Myanmar Landforms of the South China Sea Landforms of Thailand . Malesia Peninsulas of Asia Regions of Asia . Strait of Malacca Articles containing video clips