Malaysia

Malaysia, Malay Malaysian, is a country in Southeast Asia consisting of Peninsular Malaysia or West Malaysia (most of the Malay Peninsula) and East Malaysia (North Borneo). It is located about 200 km north of the equator. Its capital city is Kuala Lumpur and its area is 329,750 km2.L'utilisation name "Malaysia" to denote the Malay Peninsula is recent. This name is the French language in Malaya in the phrase "British Malaya" (Malaya) by which the English designated, from the late nineteenth century, the territories they controlled on the peninsula.

Until 1912 the name "Federation of Malaya" applied only to the entity created in 1896 by the British and became independent in 1957, the "Malayan Union" (Malayan Union). This consisted in the Malay Peninsula, the Malay States, who had previously status protectorates, and Strait Settlements, that is to say the settlements of Malacca, Penang and Singapore.

When the British territories in Borneo, Sabah (British North Borneo) and Sarawak became independent in 1963 and agree to join Malaysia, the new entity is called the neologism of "Malaysia".

In French, "Malaysia" originally had a different meaning. In 1831, Jules Dumont d'Urville proposed that the Geographical Society of Paris an organization of Oceania into four parts:

Polynesia ("many islands")
Melanesia ("black islands")
Micronesia ("small islands") and
Malaysia.
By that name, Dumont d'Urville heard a region encompassing Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines today. At the time, in fact, it was considered that the inhabitants of this region could be referred to as encompassing "Malay".

Strictly speaking, the Malays are the people who speak the Malay language and living in the east coast of the island of Sumatra, the Riau islands, the Malay Peninsula and the coast of the island of Borneo.

The Treaty of London in 1824 between English and Dutch will result in a division in two of the Malay world. So we can not identify it in Malaysia alone.

To avoid confusion, the gentile "Malaysian" is used to denote what belongs to Malaysia as a state, the word "Malay" meaning what is the language, culture, ethnicity, and therefore covers a territory broader. Thus, the term "Malay world" in the strict sense refers to the geographical area inhabited by the Malays and described above.

1511 marks the first European presence in Malaysia with the capture of the city of Malacca (​​Melaka in Malay) by the Portuguese viceroy of India, Afonso de Albuquerque, Goa party at the head of a fleet of eighteen ships and 1200 men.

Taking Malacca by the Portuguese has had two fundamental consequences: a network outage merchants Southeast Asian insular and peninsular, and the Christianization of the eastern Indonesian archipelago.

In 1641, the Dutch VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Company or "Dutch East India Company"), combined with Johor, Malacca, in turn, take the Portuguese.

Like other Asian countries, Malaysia has in the early 1990s to a massive influx of capital that aliens.4 then withdrew, destabilizing the currency and the economy of the countries 5.

Malaysia is a member of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations-East). Parliament consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives has 192 seats elected by universal suffrage every five years. The Senate consists of 69 members appointed for a term of three years: 43 senators are appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong 2 for the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and 1 for the Federal Territory of Labuan and 26 are elected by the Assemblies laws of the states. Malaysia has chaired the Non-Aligned Movement from 2003 to 2006 and is covered in case of attack by the military agreements Five Power Defence Arrangements.