First World City: Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

Not until the 1960s was Kuala Lumpur a significant international city (Chapter 1). Georgetown (Penang) was the more important service centre on the western side of the Malay Peninsula (Chapter 6). However, after 1896, as the capital of the new Federated Malay States, Kuala Lumpur gradually became the hub of the Peninsula’s land transport networks and in population moved ahead of Ipoh (Table 10.1). Despite population growth during the 1920s, 1930s and the Emergency (1948–60), the administrative centre of Kuala Lumpur and its outlet of Port Swettenham (later Port Klang) did not challenge the commercial dominance of Singapore (Chapter 7).