"kota negeri Melaka bersejarah" a Melaka Travel Page by sha_stallion

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Masjid Pengkalan Rama in Sumatran style

If you do visit Melaka, you would catch sight of flags calling it 'negeri Melaka bersejarah', Malay to mean 'historic Melaka country'. And why not as historians place the founding of Melaka as early as 1376.

Many claimed Parameswara, a Sumatran prince, named 'Melaka' from the tree that shaded him. He founded the town from the very spot where a courageous mouse-deer, 'pelandok' in Malay, in its defence attacked one of his dogs and forced it into the river-water. Parameswara, incidentally, was the first Malay prince to become a Muslim and inevitably, Islam became the religion of Malays in the Peninsular (now West Malaysia).

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Melaka trishaws

Midway along the straits that linked China to India and the Near East, Melaka was perfectly positioned as a centre for maritime trade. During his rule in his new name Iskandar Shah, the city grew rapidly into a booming international trading post, luring over Javanese, Indian, Arab and Chinese sea-merchants. The city was known worldwide as a centre for the trade of silk and porcelain from China; textiles from Gujarat and Coromandel in India; camphor from Borneo; sandalwood from Timor; nutmeg, mace, and cloves from the Moluccas, gold and pepper from Sumatra; and tin from western Malaya.