The history of Kuala Lumpur

History of Kuala Lumpur

The founding of Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is a relatively young city. It is estimated that Kuala Lumpur is established in 1857 as an important site for the tin industry. Around that time it was Raja Abdullah bin Raja Jaafar gave the order to hire tin prospectors and Chinese miners to explore the jungle area of Ampang to find and open new tin mines. After finding tin in the Ampang area, the location of the current Kuala Lumpur became the transshipment point for the tin mines.

It is not known who gave this settlement the name of Kuala Lumpur, which literally means muddy confluence. There are two main theories and several suggestions how the city has got its name. The first main theory states that Kuala Lumpur is named after Sungai Lumpur (muddy river), since Sungai Lumpur was the most important site for the tin industry up the Klang River at that time. The second main theory states that the name of Kuala Lumpur is derived from its location at the confluence of the Klang river and the Gombak river. In Malay the word for one river joining another river or sea is kuala. Together with the word lumpur (muddy), this became Kuala Lumpur.

Everybody wants a piece of Kuala Lumpur
The conditions in the jungle and the mines were though and many of the early miners died, due to malaria, jungle diseases and unhealthy conditions. But the success of the tin mines attracted other miners and merchants of which many came from China to trade basic supplies for tin. Kuala grew to a small town in the 1860s and 1870s. In this town miners started to form gangs and fought with each other to gain political power and control of the revenues from the best tin mines. This led in the 1867 – 1874 period to the Klang War or Selangor Civil War. During this period large parts of Kuala Lumpur burnt down. Also other disasters besides the war like the outbreak of cholera and a drop in tin prices made many people leave Kuala Lumpur in the 1870s. In 1874 this also led to the acceptance of a British Resident system. It allowed the British to rule Selangor while the Sultan of Selangor remained the head.

The most important figures of the 1880s were the third Chinese Kapitan of Kuala Lumpur Yap Ah Loy and the British Resident Frank Swettenham. Because of the first the town flourished, law and order were ensured, was the town rebuilt after several fires and was the first school in the town built. Because of the second the streets became wider, a railway line was developed and the destroyed buildings were rebuilt of the less flammable bricks and tiles. During this period the town kept attracting many people from other parts of the country and from abroad. The town grew rapidly and got distinct areas with different communities where the Chinese, the Malay, the Indian and British formed the largest separate communities. In 1896 Kuala Lumpur became the capital of the recently formed Federated Malay States.

In the early twentieth century the city kept increasing rapidly due to the expanding rubber industry in Selangor that again attracted foreign capital, businessmen, merchants and planters that also brought their own cultures with them. During this boom it became the Chinese inhabitants that mainly runned the commercial activities Kuala Lumpur.

On 11 January 1942 the Japanese occupied Kuala Lumpur until 15 August 1945 when they surrendered to the British administration. Shortly thereafter from 1948 until 1960 was the war between the Commonwealth armed forces and the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party. This period was called the Malayan Emergency. Despite the thousands of people that lost their lives during these wars Kuala Lumpur kept on growing. During this period of wars the population developed a need for independence, which led to the British loss of influence .

Independence and the economic boom
In the year 1957 the population demanded independence and the British agreed so that the Federation of Malaya became independent from British rule. The official proclamation was on 31 August 1957 in a ceremony at the Stadium Merdeka which was especially built for the occasion of independence. After the independence of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur became the first place in the country that obtained the city status in the year 1972.

During the 1990s there was an economic boom in Asia and the city of Kuala Lumpur developed into a modern, dynamic, progressive and enjoyable world city with shopping malls, a business centre, new residential projects and skyscrapers. In the year 1996 were the Petronas Twin Towers completed which became the symbol of the city.

In 1999 the Federal Government decided to implemented some changes because the city became too overcrowded and congested. The seat of the Constitutional King and the Parliament remained in the city, but the seat of the government moved to the nearby planned city Putrajaya.

One of the most recent modern planned cities to relieve Kuala Lumpur is Cyberjaya. As the name suggests it is an IT-themed city and strives to be the Silicon Valley of South-East Asia. In Cyberjaya are ICT and multimedia industries, residential areas and several colleges and universities like the Multimedia University (MMU), Kirkby International College, Cyberjaya University College of Medical Sciences (CUCMS) and Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT).