Malaysia
a monarch.
population: National quarterly estimate (31 Mar 2026) · indicators as of 5 Sep 2026 · 15 metros tracked
🗺️ Geography15 metros
Malaysia metro footprint, shaded by composite tier.
Select a metro for its rank and a link to its page. Boundaries derived from Overture Maps administrative divisions; metros without source coverage are omitted.
🏙️ 15 tracked metros
📋 At a glance
- Official language
- Malay
- Currency
- Malaysian ringgit (RM)
- Government
- Federation
- Legislature
- Parliament of Malaysia
- Constitution
- 1957, 38 amendment events since
- Demonym
- Malaysian
- Time zone
- UTC+08:00
- Driving side
- Left
- Calling code
- +60
- Internet TLD
- .my
- ISO 3166
- MY
- Established
- 1963
- Highest point
- Mount Kota Kinabalu (4,095 m (13,435 ft))
- National anthem
- Negaraku
Facts via Wikidata.
🗣️ Languages of Malaysia
Standard Malay first; 3 languages share the country; 1 official.
| Language | Share | Status | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Malay | 75% | Official | CLDR, country |
| English | 21% | None | CLDR, country |
| Mandarin Chinese | 17% | None | CLDR, country |
| Tamil | 4.2% | None | CLDR, country |
| Iban | 2.5% | None | CLDR, country |
| Javanese | 1.2% | None | CLDR, country |
Shares count first and second language, so they overlap and can add past 100%.
- English reach
- 21%
- Tier 3 country
- Effective languages
- 1.6
- Official-language gap
- 25%
- Standard Malay is spoken by 75%
📰 In the news2 stories
Semafor · 8 Sept 2026
Malaysia eyes Huawei chipsMalaysia is weighing Huawei accelerators for sovereign AI.
The Stadium Business · 29 Jul 2026
"Malaysia steps in to host F1's Bahrain Grand Prix"Sepang returns for the first time since 2017, backfilling races postponed by the Gulf conflict.
💹 Economy and developmentUpper middle income
Ranks are among sovereign countries with data; ★ marks a top-5% finish. Sources: World Bank Open Data and Our World in Data (UNDP, UN WPP, V-Dem, Global Carbon Budget, Ember, Energy Institute; CC BY 4.0). Each card credits its originating body. Renewable share is of electricity generation, not of primary energy. Each figure is the most recent year available.
Alliances & Organisations7 full memberships
Full memberDashed border = Candidate / ApplicantItalic = Dialogue / Observer
🏛️ Leadership History11 leaders · click to expand
is an editorial flag: associated with atrocities against civilians, systemic subversion of the constitutional order, or a criminal conviction (political persecutions and annulled convictions excluded). It is a curated list, not a measurement, so a name without one has not been cleared of anything. Hover a badge for the reason on file. marks a monarch.
2020s
2010s–20s
2010s
2000s
1980s–2000s
1970s–80s
1970s
1950s–60s
Elections
Every general election since 1955 →
The BN supermajority decades on a tilted map, and the two-coalition era that made power change hands.
Constitution
Written 1957 →
38 amendment events since, the last in 2025. Compare it with every other country.
Spectrum →
Executive 4.0 (label)
Legislature 7.9 mean, 0.5 spread · parliamentary
📈 Power over timeThe Power Atlas →
The power line is the headline share of world power, running from the state’s first ranked year (benchmark estimates with wide error bars before 1816). Latent power is material mass a state could mobilise (population, manpower, heavy industry). Recognised power is what the system actually treats it as (military spending, productive economy, reach, and status such as a Security Council seat or nuclear arsenal). When latent runs above recognised, a power is rising or under-rated; when recognised runs higher, it is punching above its weight or coasting on prestige. Material sub-indices run 1816 through 2016.
⚔️ Wars and conflicts1 interstate war · click to expand
| Conflict | Years | Against | Combat deaths |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation | 1963–1966 | Indonesia | 874+ |
Bold = principal belligerent. Source: Wikipedia, “List of interstate wars since 1945.”
👥 Population over time
Our World in Data population (CC BY): UN WPP 2024 from 1950, Gapminder v7 1800-1949, HYDE 3.3 earlier; today's borders. Figures above are as of 2023, the last year that is estimated rather than forecast. The dashed tail to 2026 is a UN WPP medium-variant projection. It is drawn because the line should reach the present, and drawn differently because it has not happened yet: no rank, peak or share on this page uses it. Before 1950 the series is reconstruction rather than contemporaneous statistics, which is worth knowing when a country’s peak sits back there. The current population shown elsewhere on this page comes from the workbook and is unchanged by this. Note that people and share of world can move in opposite directions. A country can grow steadily and still become a smaller part of humanity, which is what happened to almost every rich country after 1960.
👥 To 2100
The UN’s probabilistic projection for Malaysia: the median with its 80% and 95% bands, the UN’s own high, low and zero-migration scenarios beside it. Not this site’s model; the site reads it and says what it implies.
What drives it
Births, deaths and net migration on the UN medium path, with fertility, life expectancy and median age, every decade from 1950.
Source: United Nations, DESA, Population Division. World Population Prospects 2024. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 IGO. Estimates to 2023; projections 2024 to 2100, medium variant and probabilistic intervals. The UN revises every two years; this is the WPP 2024 revision.
💰 Billionaires25 · $77.6B combined · click to expand
Source: Forbes real-time billionaires (via the rtb-api project). Net worth as of the latest monthly snapshot.
🏆 National Teams
Malaysia on the international stage. Select a card for the full record.