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Malay Peninsula
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The Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula (Malay: Semenanjung Tanah Melayu) (Thai: คาบสมุทรมลายู) is a major peninsula located in Southeast Asia. It is also known as the Kra Peninsula and runs approximately north-south through the Kra Isthmus.
The coastal waters are (clockwise from northeast) the Gulf of Thailand, the South China Sea (opposite Borneo), the Straits of Johor (opposite Singapore), the Straits of Singapore (along Singapore's western coasts), the Straits of Malacca (opposite Sumatra) and the Andaman Sea.
The area is divided politically:
- the northwest is the extreme south part of Myanmar (Burma)
- the central region and northeast is the south part of Thailand
- the south is the part of Malaysia called Peninsular Malaysia or West Malaysia (which should not be confused with the larger Malay Peninsula).
The Malay term Tanah Melayu is still occasionally used in political discourse to describe uniting all Malay people on the peninsula under one Malay nation, although this ambition was largely realized with the creation of Malaysia. There however remains a Malay majority in southern Thailand, as the area was formerly part of the Pattani kingdom, a Malay kingdom. There is also a Malay minority in Singapore, an island country with a Chinese majority that began to develop into a major city when the British leased the island from the Sultanate of Johor in 1819.
The west coast of the peninsula was especially popular among seafaring Bugis, Chinese and Indians as a stopover, leading to increased migration of the people to set up visible coastal settlements in the thirteenth century.[citation needed]
The Malay Peninsula may have been the peninsula recorded as Chersonesus Aurea in Roman times.[citation needed]