Malay Peninsula
peninsula in Southeast Asia
The Malay Peninsula is located in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, Tanjung Piai, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area contains Peninsular Malaysia, Southern Thailand, and the southernmost tip of Myanmar (Kawthaung). The island country of Singapore also has historical and cultural ties with the region.
The Titiwangsa Mountains are part of the Tenasserim Hills system and form the backbone of the peninsula and the southernmost section of the central cordillera, which runs from Tibet through the Kra Isthmus, the peninsula's narrowest point, into the Malay Peninsula. The Strait of Malacca separates the Malay Peninsula from the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and the south coast is separated from the island of Singapore by the Straits of Johor.
Etymology
The Malay term Tanah Melayu is derived from the word Tanah (land) and Melayu (Malays), thus it means "the Malay land". The term can be found in various Malay texts, of which the oldest dating back to the early 17th century. It is frequently mentioned in the Hikayat Hang Tuah, a well-known classic tale associated with the legendary heroes of Malacca Sultanate. Tanah Melayu in the text is consistently employed to refer to the area under Malaccan dominance.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Malay Peninsula” is peninsula in Southeast Asia. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Malay, Peninsula and peninsula, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18758. VIAF identifies the subject as 241440803. Authority coordinates are 7.000, 100.000. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Malay Peninsula” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.