Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia's capital beneath the Petronas Towers
Kuala Lumpur, KL to nearly everyone, is Malaysia's gleaming capital, a multicultural metropolis whose greater region holds close to nine million people. The twin Petronas Towers, for years the tallest buildings in the world, soar above a skyline that mixes Mughal-inflected colonial architecture, Chinese shophouses, mosques, temples, and shopping malls. It is a city built on tin and rubber wealth, where Malay, Chinese, and Indian cultures and cuisines mingle on every street.
The city lies in a valley at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers, hemmed by forested hills in the western part of the Malay Peninsula, in a hot and humid equatorial climate of near-daily afternoon thunderstorms. Its very name means muddy confluence, marking the spot where the two rivers meet at the heart of the old town. Limestone hills riddled with caves, including the Hindu shrine at Batu Caves, rise just beyond the city.
Kuala Lumpur began around 1857 as a rough settlement serving the tin mines that drew Chinese laborers to the Klang valley, growing into the capital of British Malaya and then of independent Malaysia in 1957. Rapid late-twentieth-century growth transformed it into a modern financial and commercial center, crowned by the Petronas Towers in 1998. Though some federal functions have moved to the planned city of Putrajaya, KL remains the nation's capital, largest city, and cultural crossroads.