Malaysia is a geographically split county; part of the country, including the capital, is located on the Southeastern Asia peninsula south of Thailand and north of the islands of Singapore bordering the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca. The other part of the country is on the northern third of the island of Borneo bordering Indonesia, Brunei, and the South China Sea.
Malaysia is slightly larger than New Mexico. Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, is located on the Southeastern Asia peninsula.
The government is a constitutional monarchy. The head of the government is elected from the hereditary rulers of nine of the thirteen Malaysian states for a five year term. This is a primarily ceremonial position.
The country’s currency is the ringgit.
The July 2008 estimate of the population was 24,274,132 with a population growth rate of 1.74 percent. The current life expectancy is 73.03 years with women outliving men by five and a half years.
Bahasa Malaysia is the official language of the country although English, various Chinese dialects, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi and Thai are also spoken. Malaysia has an 88.7 percent literacy rate of people over the age of 15 with over six and a half percent more men being literate than women. The majority religion is Muslim at 60.4 percent. Other religions are Buddhist (19.2 percent), Christian (9.1 percent), and Hindu (6.3 percent).
Web Sites
Catalog
Search the library's catalog for Malaysia.
Databases
Enter Malaysia in these databases:
**Survey: Provide Feedback About the Web Site, Including This Page**