Bikam
Bikam is a small estate town in Hilir Perak District, Perak, Malaysia. It is situated beside the main road (Federal Road 58) connecting Teluk Intan and Bidor. Kuala Bikam is famous for its fruits as there are many fruit farms around the town.

Malaysia
Country in Southeast Asia
Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. A federal constitutional monarchy, it consists of 13 states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Malaysia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia. East Malaysia shares land borders with Brunei and Indonesia, as well as a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. Kuala Lumpur is the national capital, the country's largest city, and the seat of the legislative branch of the federal government.
Putrajaya is the federal administrative capital, which represents the seat of both the executive branch (the Cabinet, federal ministries, and federal agencies) and the judicial branch of the federal government. With a population of over 34 million, the country is the world's 42nd-most populous country. Malaysia is tropical and is one of 17 megadiverse countries; it is home to numerous endemic species. Tanjung Piai in the Malaysian state of Johor is the southernmost point of continental Eurasia.
The country has its origins in the Malay kingdoms, which, from the 18th century on, became subject to the British Empire, along with the British Straits Settlements protectorate. During World War II, British Malaya, along with other nearby British and American colonies, was occupied by the Empire of Japan. Following three years of occupation, Peninsular Malaysia was briefly unified as the Malayan Union in 1946 until 1948 when it was restructured as the Federation of Malaya. The country achieved independence on 31 August 1957. On 16 September 1963, independent Malaya united with the then British crown colonies of North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore to become Malaysia. In August 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation and became a separate, independent country.
The country is multiethnic and multicultural, which has a significant effect on its politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Chinese, Indians, and indigenous peoples. The official language is Malaysian Malay, a standard form of the Malay language. English remains an active second language. It is also home to 111 living indigenous languages. While recognising Islam as the official religion, the constitution grants freedom of religion to non-Muslims. The government is modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system, and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is an elected monarch, chosen from among the nine state sultans every five years. The head of government is the prime minister.
The country's economy has traditionally been driven by its natural resources but is expanding into commerce, tourism, and medical tourism. The country has a newly industrialised market economy, which is relatively open and state-oriented. The country is a founding member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the East Asia Summit (EAS), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Commonwealth, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
Etymology.
The name "Malaysia" is a combination of the word "Malays" and the Latin-Greek suffix "-ia"/-ία which can be translated as 'land of the Malays'. Similar-sounding variants have also appeared in accounts older than the 11th century, as toponyms for areas in Sumatra or referring to a larger region around the Strait of Malacca. The Sanskrit text "Vayu Purana", thought to have been in existence since the first millennium CE, mentioned a land named 'Malayadvipa' which was identified by certain scholars as the modern Malay Peninsula. Other notable accounts are by Ptolemy's 2nd-century "Geographia" that used the name "Malayu Kulon" for the west coast of Golden Chersonese, and the 7th-century Yijing's account of "Malayu".
At some point, the Melayu Kingdom took its name from the "Sungai Melayu". "Melayu" then became associated with Srivijaya, and remained associated with various parts of Sumatra, especially Palembang, where the founder of the Malacca Sultanate is thought to have come from. It is only thought to have developed into an ethnonym as Malacca became a regional power in the 15th century. Islamisation established an ethnoreligious identity in Malacca, with the term "Melayu" beginning to appear as interchangeable with "Melakans". It may have specifically referred to local Malay speakers who were loyal to the Malaccan Sultan. The initial Portuguese use of reflected this, referring only to the ruling people of Malacca. The prominence of traders from Malacca led "Melayu" to be associated with Muslim traders, and from there became associated with the wider cultural and linguistic group. Malacca and later Johor claimed they were the centre of Malay culture, a position supported by the British which led to the term "Malay" becoming more usually linked to the Malay peninsula rather than Sumatra.
Before the onset of European colonisation, the Malay Peninsula was known natively as "Tanah Melayu" ('Malay Land'). Under a racial classification created by a German scholar Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the natives of maritime Southeast Asia were grouped into a single category, the Malay race. Following the expedition of French navigator Jules Dumont d'Urville to Oceania in 1826, he later proposed the terms of "Malaysia", "Micronesia" and "Melanesia" to the "Société de Géographie" in 1831, distinguishing these Pacific cultures and island groups from the existing term "Polynesia". Dumont d'Urville described Malaysia as "an area commonly known as the East Indies". In 1850, the English ethnologist George Samuel Windsor Earl, writing in the "Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia", proposed naming the islands of Southeast Asia as "Melayunesia" or "Indunesia", favouring the former. The name Malaysia gained some use to label what is now the Malay Archipelago. In modern terminology, "Malay" remains the name of an ethnoreligious group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula and portions of the adjacent islands of Southeast Asia, including the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and smaller islands that lie between these areas.
The state that gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1957 took the name "the Federation of Malaya", chosen in preference to other potential names such as "Malaysia" and "Langkasuka", after the historic kingdom located at the upper section of the Malay Peninsula in the first millennium CE. Nonetheless, the name "Malaysia" was adopted in 1963 when the existing states of the Federation of Malaya, plus Singapore, North Borneo and Sarawak formed a new federation. One theory posits the name was chosen so that "si" represented the inclusion of Singapore, North Borneo, and Sarawak to Malaya in 1963. Politicians in the Philippines contemplated renaming their state Malaysia before the modern country took the name.
History.
Evidence of modern human habitation in Malaysia dates back 40,000 years. In the Malay Peninsula, the first inhabitants are thought to be Negritos. Areas of Malaysia participated in the Maritime Jade Road between 2000 BC to 1000 AD. Traders and settlers from India and China arrived as early as the first century AD, establishing trading ports and coastal towns in the second and third centuries. Their presence resulted in strong Indian and Chinese influences on the local cultures, and the people of the Malay Peninsula adopted the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Sanskrit inscriptions appear as early as the fourth or fifth century. The Kingdom of Langkasuka arose around the second century in the northern area of the Malay Peninsula, lasting until about the 15th century. Between the 7th and 13th centuries, much of the southern Malay Peninsula was part of the maritime Srivijayan empire. By the 13th and the 14th century, the Majapahit empire had successfully wrested control over most of the peninsula and the Malay Archipelago from Srivijaya. In the early 15th century, Parameswara, a runaway king of the former Kingdom of Singapura linked to the old Srivijayan court, founded the Malacca Sultanate. The spread of Islam increased following Parameswara's conversion to that religion. Malacca was an important commercial centre during this time, attracting trade from around the region.
In 1511, Malacca was conquered by Portugal, after which it was taken by the Dutch in 1641. In 1786, the British Empire established a presence in Malaya, when the Sultan of Kedah leased Penang Island to the British East India Company. The British obtained the town of Singapore in 1819, and in 1824 took control of Malacca following the Anglo-Dutch Treaty. By 1826, the British directly controlled Penang, Malacca, Singapore, and the island of Labuan, which they established as the crown colony of the Straits Settlements. By the 20th century, the states of Pahang, Selangor, Perak, and Negeri Sembilan, known together as the Federated Malay States, had British residents appointed to advise the Malay rulers, to whom the rulers were bound to defer by treaty. The remaining five states on the peninsula, known as the Unfederated Malay States, while not directly under British rule, also accepted British advisers around the turn of the 20th century. Development on the peninsula and Borneo were generally separate until the 19th century. Under British rule the immigration of Chinese and Indians to serve as labourers was encouraged. The area that is now Sabah came under British control as North Borneo when both the Sultan of Brunei and the Sultan of Sulu transferred their respective territorial rights of ownership, between 1877 and 1878. In 1842, Sarawak was ceded by the Sultan of Brunei to James Brooke, whose successors ruled as the White Rajahs over an independent kingdom until 1946, when it became a crown colony.
In the Second World War, the Japanese Army invaded and occupied Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore for over three years. During this time, ethnic tensions were raised and nationalism grew. Popular support for independence increased after Malaya was reconquered by Allied forces. Post-war British plans to unite the administration of Malaya under a single crown colony called the Malayan Union met with strong opposition from the Malays, who opposed the weakening of the Malay rulers and the granting of citizenship to the ethnic Chinese. The Malayan Union, established in 1946, and consisting of all the British possessions in the Malay Peninsula except for Singapore, was quickly dissolved and replaced on 1 February 1948 by the Federation of Malaya, which restored the autonomy of the rulers of the Malay states under British protection.
During this time, the mostly ethnically Chinese rebels under the leadership of the Malayan Communist Party launched guerrilla operations designed to force the British out of Malaya. The Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) involved a long anti-insurgency campaign by Commonwealth troops in Malaya. On 31 August 1957, Malaya became an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations. Subsequently, a comprehensive plan was devised to unite Malaya with the crown colonies of North Borneo (known as Sabah upon joining), Sarawak, and Singapore. The envisioned federation was originally intended to take place on 31 August 1963, to coincide with the commemoration of Malayan independence. However, due to the necessity of conducting a survey on the level of support for the federation in Sabah and Sarawak by the United Nations, as requested by opponents of the federation such as Indonesia's Sukarno and the Sarawak United Peoples' Party, the date of the federation was postponed until 16 September 1963.
The federation brought heightened tensions including a conflict with Indonesia as well as continual conflicts against the Communists in Borneo and the Malay Peninsula, which escalated to the Sarawak Communist Insurgency and Second Malayan Emergency together with several other issues such as the cross-border attacks into Sabah by Moro pirates from the southern islands of the Philippines, Singapore being expelled from the Federation in 1965, and racial strife. This strife culminated in the 13 May race riots in 1969. After the riots, the controversial New Economic Policy was launched by Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak, trying to increase the share of the economy held by the "bumiputera". Under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad there was a period of rapid economic growth and urbanization beginning in the 1980s. The economy shifted from being agriculturally based to one based on manufacturing and industry. Numerous mega-projects were completed, such as the Petronas Towers, the North–South Expressway, the Multimedia Super Corridor, and the new federal administrative capital of Putrajaya.
In the late 1990s, the Asian financial crisis impacted the country, nearly causing their currency, stock, and property markets to crash; however, they later recovered. The 1MDB scandal was a major global corruption scandal that implicated then-Prime Minister Najib Razak in 2015. The scandal contributed to the first change in the ruling political party since independence in the 2018 general election. In the 2020s, the country was gripped by a political crisis that coincided with health and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This was then followed by an earlier general election in November 2022, which resulted in the first hung parliament in the nation's history. On 24 November 2022, Anwar Ibrahim was sworn in as the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia, leading a grand coalition government.
Government and politics.
Malaysia is a federal constitutional elective monarchy and the only federal country in Southeast Asia. The system of government is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system, a legacy of British rule. The head of state is the King, whose official title is the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. The King is elected to a five-year term by and from among the nine hereditary rulers of the Malay states. The other four states, which have titular Governors, do not participate in the selection. By informal agreement the position is rotated among the nine, and has been held by Ibrahim Iskandar of Johor since 31 January 2024. The King's role has been largely ceremonial since changes to the constitution in 1994, picking ministers and members of the upper house.
Legislative power is divided between federal and state legislatures. The bicameral federal parliament consists of the lower house, the House of Representatives and the upper house, the Senate. The 222-member House of Representatives is elected for a maximum term of five years from single-member constituencies. All 70 senators sit for three-year terms; 26 are elected by the 13 state assemblies, and the remaining 44 are appointed by the King upon the Prime Minister's recommendation. The parliament follows a multi-party system and the government is elected through a first-past-the-post system. Parliamentary elections are held at least once every five years. Before 2018, only registered voters aged 21 and above could vote for the members of the House of Representatives and, in most of the states, for the state legislative chamber. Voting is not mandatory. In July 2019, a bill to lower the voting age to 18 years old was officially passed.
Executive power is vested in the Cabinet, led by the Prime Minister. The prime minister must be a member of the House of Representatives, who in the opinion of His Majesty the King, commands the support of a majority of members. The Cabinet is chosen from members of both houses of Parliament. The Prime Minister is both the head of cabinet and the head of government. As a result of the 2018 general election Malaysia was governed by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) political alliance, although Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad resigned amid a political crisis in 2020. In March 2020, the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition formed under Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, before Muhyiddin lost majority support and was replaced by deputy Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, a veteran politician from the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), in August 2021. As a result of the 2022 Malaysian general election, a hung parliament was elected. Anwar Ibrahim of the PH coalition was appointed as the new Prime Minister to lead the coalition government of PH, Barisan Nasional, Gabungan Parti Sarawak, Gabungan Rakyat Sabah and several other political parties and independents. Meanwhile, PN, the only political coalition not in the coalition government became the Opposition.
Malaysia's legal system is based on common law. Although the judiciary is theoretically independent, its independence has been called into question and the appointment of judges lacks accountability and transparency. The highest court in the judicial system is the Federal Court, followed by the Court of Appeal and two high courts, one for Peninsular Malaysia and one for East Malaysia. Malaysia also has a special court to hear cases brought by or against royalty.
Race is a significant force in politics. Affirmative actions such as the New Economic Policy and the National Development Policy which superseded it, were implemented to advance the standing of the "bumiputera", consisting of Malays and the indigenous tribes who are considered the original inhabitants of Malaysia, over non-"bumiputera" such as Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Indians. These policies provide preferential treatment to "bumiputera" in employment, education, scholarships, business, and access to cheaper housing and assisted savings. However, it has generated greater interethnic resentment. There is ongoing debate over whether the laws and society of Malaysia should reflect Islamism or secularism. Islamic criminal laws passed by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party with the support of UMNO state assemblymen in the state legislative assembly of Kelantan have been unenforced by the federal government on the basis that criminal laws are the responsibility of the federal government.
After UMNO lost power at the 2018 Malaysian general election, Malaysia's ranking increased by 9 places in the 2019 Democracy Index to 43rd compared to the previous year and is classified as a 'flawed democracy'. Malaysia's ranking in the 2020 Press Freedom Index increased by 22 places to 101st compared to the previous year, making it one of two countries in Southeast Asia without a 'Difficult situation' or 'Very Serious situation' with regards to press freedom. However, it fell 18 places the following year due to the policies of the PN government.
Malaysia is marked at 48th and 62nd place according to the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, indicating above-average levels of corruption. Freedom House noted Malaysia as "partly free" in its 2018 survey. A lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice alleged that at least $3.5 billion involving former prime minister Najib Razak had been stolen from Malaysia's 1MDB state-owned fund, known as the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal.
Administrative divisions.
Malaysia is a federation of 13 states and three federal territories. Out of these, eleven states and two federal territories are in Peninsular Malaysia, whereas the other two states and one federal territory comprise East Malaysia.
The country has three tiers of government – federal, state and local. Governance of the states is divided between the federal and the state governments, with different powers reserved for each, and the federal government has direct administration of the federal territories. Each state has a unicameral State Legislative Assembly whose members are elected from single-member constituencies. State governments are led by Chief Ministers, who are state assembly members from the majority party in the assembly. In each of the states with a hereditary ruler, the Chief Minister is normally required to be a Malay, appointed by the ruler upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister. Until 2018, state elections were held concurrently with the general election by convention, except for those in Sarawak. Following the 2020–2022 political crisis, only Pahang, Perak and Perlis opted to conduct their state elections simultaneously with the general elections.
Positioned below the federal and state governments, local governments represent the lowest tier of governance in Malaysia. As of 2024[ [update]], Malaysia is divided between 19 cities, 40 municipalities, 91 district-level councils, and four statutory agencies. While the federal constitution assigns local authorities to the exclusive jurisdiction of state governments, in practice, the federal Ministry of Housing and Local Government oversees the regulation of local laws and policies. Mayors (or presidents for municipal and district councils) and councillors are appointed by the respective state governments, or in the case of the federal territories, by the federal government.
Federal laws assign land matters, including the delineation of districts, to the purview of state governments. Except Perlis and the federal territories, each state is divided into districts, which are further subdivided into mukims. In Sabah and Sarawak, districts are grouped into divisions. In contrast to local governments that manage municipal administration and infrastructure development, districts are solely utilised for land taxation.
The 13 states are based on historical Malay kingdoms, and 9 of the 11 Peninsular states, known as the Malay states, retain their royal families. The King is elected by and from the nine rulers to serve a five-year term. This King appoints governors serving a four-year term for the states without monarchies, after consultations with the chief minister of that state. Each state has its written constitution. Sabah and Sarawak have considerably more autonomy than the other states, most notably having separate immigration policies and controls, and unique residency status. Federal intervention in state affairs, lack of development, and disputes over oil royalties have occasionally led to statements about secession from leaders in several states such as Penang, Johor, Kelantan, Sabah and Sarawak, although these have not been followed up and no serious independence movements exist.
A list of thirteen states and each state capital (in parentheses):
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Foreign relations and military.
A founding member of ASEAN and OIC, the country participates in many international organisations such as the United Nations (U.N.), APEC, the D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation, and NAM. It has chaired ASEAN, OIC, and NAM in the past. A former British colony, it is also a member of the Commonwealth. Kuala Lumpur was the site of the first EAS in 2005.
Malaysia's foreign policy is officially based on the principle of neutrality and maintaining peaceful relations with all countries, regardless of their political system. The government attaches a high priority to the security and stability of Southeast Asia, and seeks to further develop relations with other countries in the region. Historically the government has tried to portray Malaysia as a progressive Islamic nation while strengthening relations with other Islamic states. A strong tenet of Malaysia's policy is national sovereignty and right of a country to control its domestic affairs. Malaysia signed the U.N. treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The Spratly Islands are disputed by many states in the area, and a large portion of the South China Sea is claimed by China. Unlike its neighbours of Vietnam and the Philippines, Malaysia historically avoided conflicts with China. However, after the encroachment of Chinese ships in Malaysian territorial waters, and breach of airspace by their military aircraft, Malaysia has become active in condemning China. Brunei and Malaysia in 2009 announced an end to claims of each other's land, and committed to resolve issues related to their maritime borders. The Philippines has a dormant claim to the eastern part of Sabah. Singapore's land reclamation has caused tensions, and minor maritime and land border disputes exist with Indonesia.
The Malaysian Armed Forces has three branches: the Malaysian Army, Royal Malaysian Navy and the Royal Malaysian Air Force. There is no conscription, and the required age for voluntary military service is 18. The military uses 1.5% of the country's GDP, and employs 1.23% of Malaysia's manpower. Malaysian peacekeeping forces of MALBATT have contributed to many U.N. peacekeeping missions, such as in Congo, Iran–Iraq, Namibia, Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Kosovo, East Timor, and Lebanon.
The Five Power Defence Arrangements is a regional security initiative that has been in place for almost 40 years. It involves joint military exercises held among Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Joint exercises and war games have also been held with Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States. Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam have agreed to host joint security force exercises to secure their maritime border and tackle issues such as illegal immigration, piracy, and smuggling. Previously there were fears that extremist militant activities in the Muslim areas of the southern Philippines and southern Thailand would spill over into Malaysia. Because of this, Malaysia began to increase its border security.
Human rights.
Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia, and authorities have imposed punishments such as caning and imprisonment. Human trafficking and sex trafficking in Malaysia are significant problems. There have also been cases of vigilante executions and beatings against LGBT individuals in Malaysia. The illegality of homosexuality in Malaysia has also been the forefront of Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy trials, which Anwar has called politically motivated, a characterization supported by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, along with Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch.
The death penalty is in use for serious crimes such as murder, terrorism, drug trafficking, and kidnapping, but in June 2022, Malaysian law minister Wan Junaidi pledged to abolish capital punishment and replace it with other punishments at the discretion of the court.
Geography.
Malaysia is the 66th largest country by total land area, with a total area of . It has land borders with Thailand in West Malaysia, and Indonesia and Brunei in East Malaysia. It is linked to Singapore by a narrow causeway and a bridge. The country also has maritime boundaries with Vietnam and the Philippines. The land borders are defined in large part by geological features such as the Perlis River, the Golok River and the Pagalayan Canal, whilst some of the maritime boundaries are the subject of ongoing contention. Brunei forms what is almost an enclave in Malaysia, with the state of Sarawak dividing it into two parts. Malaysia is the only country with territory on both the Asian mainland and the Malay archipelago. The Strait of Malacca, lying between Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia, is one of the most important thoroughfares in global commerce, carrying 40 percent of the world's trade.
The two parts of Malaysia, separated from each other by the South China Sea, share a largely similar landscape in that both Peninsular and East Malaysia feature coastal plains rising to hills and mountains. Peninsular Malaysia, containing 40 per cent of Malaysia's land area, extends from north to south, and its maximum width is . It is divided between its east and west coasts by the Titiwangsa Mountains, rising to a peak elevation of at Mount Korbu, part of a series of mountain ranges running down the centre of the peninsula. These mountains are heavily forested, and mainly composed of granite and other igneous rocks. Much of it has been eroded, creating a karst landscape. The range is the origin of some of Peninsular Malaysia's river systems. The coastal plains surrounding the peninsula reach a maximum width of , and the peninsula's coastline is nearly long, although harbours are only available on the western side.
East Malaysia, on the island of Borneo, has a coastline of . It is divided between coastal regions, hills and valleys, and a mountainous interior. The Crocker Range extends northwards from Sarawak, dividing the state of Sabah. It is the location of the high Mount Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Malaysia. Mount Kinabalu is located in the Kinabalu National Park, which is protected as one of the four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Malaysia. The highest mountain ranges form the border between Malaysia and Indonesia. Sarawak contains the Mulu Caves, the largest cave system in the world, in the Gunung Mulu National Park which is also a World Heritage Site. The largest river in Malaysia is the Rajang.
Around these two halves of Malaysia are numerous islands, the largest of which is Banggi. The local climate is equatorial and characterised by the annual southwest (April to October) and northeast (October to February) monsoons. The temperature is moderated by the presence of the surrounding oceans. Humidity is usually high, and the average annual rainfall is . The climates of the Peninsula and the East differ, as the climate on the peninsula is directly affected by wind from the mainland, as opposed to the more maritime weather of the East. Local climates can be divided into three regions, highland, lowland, and coastal. Climate change will cause sea level rise and increased rainfall, increasing flood risks and leading to droughts.
Biodiversity and conservation.
Malaysia signed the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity on 12 June 1993, and became a party to the convention on 24 June 1994. It has subsequently produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which was received by the convention on 16 April 1998. The country is megadiverse with a high number of species and high levels of endemism. It is estimated to contain 20 per cent of the world's animal species. High levels of endemism are found on the diverse forests of Borneo's mountains, as species are isolated from each other by lowland forest.
There are about 210 mammal species in the country. Over 620 species of birds have been recorded in Peninsular Malaysia, with many endemic to the mountains there. A high number of endemic bird species are also found in Malaysian Borneo. 250 reptile species have been recorded in the country, with about 150 species of snakes and 80 species of lizards. There are about 150 species of frogs, and thousands of insect species. The Exclusive economic zone of Malaysia is and 1.5 times larger than its land area. It is mainly in the South China Sea. Some of its waters are in the Coral Triangle, a biodiversity hotspot. The waters around Sipadan island are the most biodiverse in the world. Bordering East Malaysia, the Sulu Sea is a biodiversity hotspot, with around 600 coral species and 1200 fish species. The unique biodiversity of Malaysian Caves always attracts lovers of ecotourism from all over the world.
Nearly 4,000 species of fungi, including lichen-forming species have been recorded from Malaysia. Of the two fungal groups with the largest number of species in Malaysia, the Ascomycota and their asexual states have been surveyed in some habitats (decaying wood, marine, and freshwater ecosystems, as parasites of some plants, and as agents of biodegradation), but have not been or have been only poorly surveyed in other habitats (as endobionts, in soils, on dung, as human and animal pathogens); the Basidiomycota are only partly surveyed: bracket fungi, and mushrooms and toadstools have been studied, but Malaysian rust and smut fungi remain very poorly known. Without a doubt, many more fungal species in Malaysia are yet to be recorded, and it is likely that many of those, when found, will be new to science.
About two thirds of Malaysia was covered in forest as of 2007, with some forests believed to be 130 million years old. The forests are dominated by dipterocarps. Lowland forest covers areas below , and formerly East Malaysia was covered in such rainforest, which is supported by its hot wet climate. There are around 14,500 species of flowering plants and trees. Besides rainforests, there are over of mangroves in Malaysia, and a large amount of peat forest. At higher altitudes, oaks, chestnuts, and rhododendrons replace dipterocarps. There are an estimated 8,500 species of vascular plants in Peninsular Malaysia, with another 15,000 in the East. The forests of East Malaysia are estimated to be the habitat of around 2,000 tree species, and are one of the most biodiverse areas in the world, with 240 different species of trees every hectare. These forests host many members of the Rafflesia genus, the largest flowers in the world, with a maximum diameter of .
Logging, along with cultivation practices, has devastated tree cover, causing severe environmental degradation in the country. Over 80 per cent of Sarawak's rainforest has been logged. Floods in East Malaysia have been worsened by the loss of trees, and over 60 per cent of the peninsula's forests have been cleared. With current rates of deforestation, mainly for the palm oil industry, the forests are predicted to be extinct by 2020. Deforestation is a major problem for animals, fungi and plants, having caused species such as "Begonia eiromischa" to go extinct. Most remaining forest is found inside reserves and national parks. Habitat destruction has proved a threat for marine life. Illegal fishing is another major threat, with fishing methods such as dynamite fishing and poisoning depleting marine ecosystems. Leatherback turtle numbers have dropped 98 per cent since the 1950s. Hunting has also been an issue for some animals, with overconsumption and the use of animal parts for profit endangering many animals, from marine life to tigers. Marine life is also detrimentally affected by uncontrolled tourism.
The Malaysian government aims to balance economic growth with environmental protection, but has been accused of favouring big business over the environment. Some state governments are now trying to counter the environmental impact and pollution created by deforestation; and the federal government is trying to cut logging by 10 per cent each year. A total of 28 national parks have been established, 23 in East Malaysia and five in the peninsula. Tourism has been limited in biodiverse areas such as Sipadan island. Wildlife trafficking is a large issue, and the Malaysian government has held talks with the governments of Brunei and Indonesia to standardise anti-trafficking laws.
Economy.
Malaysia is a relatively open state-oriented and newly industrialised market economy. It has the world's 36th-largest economy by nominal GDP and the 31st-largest by PPP. In 2017, the large service sector contributed to 53.6% of total GDP, the industrial sector 37.6%, and the small agricultural sector roughly 8.8%. Malaysia has a low official unemployment rate of 3.4% as of 2024. Its foreign exchange reserves are the world's 24th-largest. It has a labour force of about 15 million, which is the world's 34th-largest. Malaysia's large automotive industry ranks as the world's 22nd-largest by production.
Malaysia is the world's 23rd-largest exporter and 25th-largest importer. However, economic inequalities exist between different ethnic groups. The Chinese make up about one-quarter of the population, but account for 70 per cent of the country's market capitalisation. Chinese businesses in Malaysia are part of the larger bamboo network, a network of overseas Chinese businesses in the Southeast Asian market sharing common family and cultural ties.
International trade, facilitated by the shipping route in adjacent Strait of Malacca, and manufacturing are the key sectors. Malaysia is an exporter of natural and agricultural resources, and petroleum is a major export. Malaysia has once been the largest producer of tin, rubber and palm oil in the world. Manufacturing has a large influence in the country's economy, although Malaysia's economic structure has been moving away from it. Malaysia remains one of the world's largest producers of palm oil.
Tourism is the third-largest contributor to Malaysia's GDP, after the manufacturing and commodities sectors. In 2019, the sector contributed about 15.9 percent to the total GDP. According to the World Tourism Organization, Malaysia was the fourteenth-most visited country in the world, and the fourth-most visited country in Asia in 2019, with over 26.1 million visits. Malaysia was ranked 38th in the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2019. Its international tourism receipts in 2019 amounted to $19.8 billion.
The country has developed into a centre of Islamic banking and has the highest number of female workers in that industry. Knowledge-based services are also expanding. In 2020, Malaysia exported high-tech products worth $92.1 billion, the second-highest in ASEAN, after Singapore. Malaysia was ranked 33rd in the Global Innovation Index in 2024, and 32nd in the Global Competitiveness Report in 2022.
Infrastructure.
Railway transport in Malaysia is state-run, and spans some . As of 2016[ [update]], Malaysia has the world's 26th-largest road network, with some of roads. Malaysia's inland waterways are the world's 22nd-longest, and total . Among Malaysia's 114 airports, among which the busiest is Kuala Lumpur International Airport located south of Kuala Lumpur in Sepang District, which is also the twelfth-busiest airport in Asia. Among the 7 federal ports, the major one is Port Klang, which is the thirteenth-busiest container port. Malaysia's flag carrier is Malaysia Airlines, providing international and domestic air services.
Malaysia's telecommunications network is second only to Singapore's in Southeast Asia, with 4.7 million fixed-line subscribers and more than 30 million cellular subscribers. There are 200 industrial parks along with specialised parks such as Technology Park Malaysia and Kulim Hi-Tech Park. Fresh water is available to over 95% of the population, with ground water accounting for 90% of the freshwater resources. Although rural areas have been the focus of great development, they still lag behind areas such as the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The telecommunication network, although strong in urban areas, is less available to the rural population.
Malaysia's energy infrastructure sector is largely dominated by Tenaga Nasional, the largest electric utility company in Southeast Asia. Customers in Peninsular Malaysia are connected to electricity through the National Grid. The other two electric utility companies in the country are Sarawak Energy and Sabah Electricity. In 2013, Malaysia's total power generation capacity was over 29,728 megawatts. Total electricity generation was 140,985.01 GWh and total electricity consumption was 116,087.51 GWh. Energy production in Malaysia is largely based on oil and natural gas, owing to Malaysia's oil and natural gas reserves, which are the fourth largest in the Asia-Pacific region.
Demographics.
According to the Malaysian Department of Statistics, the country's population was 32,447,385 in 2020, making it the 42nd most populated country. According to a 2012 estimate, the population is increasing by 1.54 percent per year. Malaysia has an average population density of 96 people per km2, ranking it 116th in the world for population density. People within the 15–64 age group constitute 69.5 percent of the total population; the 0–14 age group corresponds to 24.5 percent; while senior citizens aged 65 years or older make up 6.0 percent. In 1960, when the first official census was recorded in Malaysia, the population was 8.11 million. 91.8 percent of the population are Malaysian citizens.
Malaysian citizens are divided along local ethnic lines, with 69.7 percent considered "bumiputera". The largest group of bumiputera are Malays, who are defined in the constitution as Muslims who practise Malay customs and culture. They play a dominant role politically. Bumiputera status is also accorded to the non-Malay indigenous groups of Sabah and Sarawak: which includes Dayaks (Iban, Bidayuh, Orang Ulu), Kadazan-Dusun, Melanau, Bajau and others. Non-Malay bumiputeras make up more than half of Sarawak's population and over two-thirds of Sabah's population. There are also indigenous or aboriginal groups in much smaller numbers on the peninsular, where they are collectively known as the Orang Asli. Laws over who gets bumiputera status vary between states.
There are also two other non-Bumiputera local ethnic groups. 22.8 percent of the population are Malaysian Chinese, while 6.8 percent are Malaysian Indian. The local Chinese have historically been more dominant in the business community. Local Indians are mostly of Tamil descent. Malaysian citizenship is not automatically granted to those born in Malaysia, but is granted to a child born of two Malaysian parents outside Malaysia. Dual citizenship is not permitted. Citizenship in the states of Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo are distinct from citizenship in Peninsular Malaysia for immigration purposes. Every citizen is issued a biometric smart chip identity card known as "MyKad" at the age of 12 and must carry the card at all times.
The population is concentrated on Peninsular Malaysia, where 20 million out of approximately 28 million Malaysians live. 70 per cent of the population is urban. Due to the rise in labour-intensive industries, the country is estimated to have over 3 million migrant workers; about 10 per cent of the population. Sabah-based NGOs estimate that out of the 3 million that make up the population of Sabah, 2 million are illegal immigrants. Malaysia hosts a population of refugees and asylum seekers numbering approximately 171,500. Of this population, approximately 79,000 are from Burma, 72,400 from the Philippines, and 17,700 from Indonesia. Malaysian officials are reported to have turned deportees directly over to human smugglers in 2007, and Malaysia employs RELA, a volunteer militia with a history of controversies, to enforce its immigration law.
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Religion.
The constitution grants freedom of religion, while establishing Islam as the "religion of the Federation". According to the Population and Housing Census 2020 figures, ethnicity and religious beliefs correlate highly. Approximately 63.5% of the population practise Islam, 18.7% practise Buddhism, 9.1% Christianity, 6.1% Hinduism and 1.3% practise Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions. 2.7% declared no religion or practised other religions or did not provide any information. The states of Sarawak, Penang and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur have non-Muslim majorities.
Sunni Islam of the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence is the dominant branch of Islam in Malaysia, while 18% are nondenominational Muslims. The Malaysian constitution strictly defines what makes a "Malay", defining Malays as those who are Muslim, speak Malay regularly, practise Malay customs, and lived in or have ancestors from Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore. Statistics from the 2010 Census indicate that 83.6% of the Chinese population identify as Buddhist, with significant numbers of adherents following Taoism (3.4%) and Christianity (11.1%), along with small Muslim populations in areas like Penang. The majority of the Indian population follows Hinduism (86.2%), with a significant minority identifying as Christians (6.0%) or Muslims (4.1%). Christianity is the predominant religion of the non-Malay "bumiputera" community (46.5%), while 40.4% identify as Muslims.
Muslims are obliged to follow the decisions of Syariah Courts (i.e. Shariah courts) in matters concerning their religion. The Islamic judges are expected to follow the Shafi'i legal school of Islam, which is the main "madh'hab" of Malaysia. The jurisdiction of Syariah courts is limited to Muslims in matters such as marriage, inheritance, divorce, apostasy, religious conversion, custody and limited Islamic criminal law. No other criminal or civil offences are under the jurisdiction of the Syariah courts, which have a similar hierarchy to the civil courts. The civil courts do not hear matters related to Islamic practices.
Languages.
The official and national language of Malaysia is Malaysian Malay, a standardised form of the Malay language. The previous official terminology was (lit. 'Malaysian language') but now government policy uses (Malay language) to refer to the official language and both terms remain in use. The National Language Act 1967 specifies the Latin (Rumi) script as the official script of the national language, but does not prohibit the use of the traditional Jawi script.
English remains an active second language, with its use allowed for some official purposes under the National Language Act of 1967. In Sarawak, English is an official state language alongside Malay. Historically, English was the de facto administrative language; Malay became predominant after the 1969 race riots (13 May incident). Malaysian English, also known as Malaysian Standard English, is a form of English derived from British English. Malaysian English is widely used in business, along with Manglish, which is a colloquial form of English with heavy Malay, Chinese, and Tamil influences. The government discourages the use of non-standard Malay but has no power to issue compounds or fines to those who use what is perceived as improper Malay on their advertisements.
Many other languages are used in Malaysia, which contains speakers of 137 living languages. Peninsular Malaysia contains speakers of 41 of these languages. The native tribes of East Malaysia have their own languages which are related to, but easily distinguishable from, Malay. Iban is the main tribal language in Sarawak while Dusunic and Kadazan languages are spoken by the natives in Sabah. Chinese Malaysians predominantly speak Chinese dialects from the southern part of China. The more common Chinese varieties in the country are Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and so on. The Tamil language is used predominantly by the majority of Malaysian Indians. A small number of Malaysians have European ancestry and speak creole languages, such as the Portuguese-based Malaccan Creoles, and the Spanish-based Chavacano language.
Health.
Malaysia operates an efficient and widespread two-tier healthcare system, consisting of a universal healthcare system and a co-existing private healthcare system; provided by highly subsidized healthcare through its extensive network of public hospitals and clinics. The Ministry of Health is the main provider of healthcare services to the country's population. Malaysia's healthcare system is considered to be among the most developed in Asia, which contributes to its thriving medical tourism industry.
Malaysia spent 3.83% of its GDP on healthcare in 2019. In 2020, the overall life expectancy in Malaysia at birth was 76 years (74 years for males and 78 years for females), and it had an infant mortality rate of 7 deaths per 1000 births. Malaysia had a total fertility rate of 2.0 in 2020, which is just below the replacement level of 2.1. In 2020, the country's crude birth rate was 16 per 1000 people, and the crude death rate was 5 per 1000 people.
In 2021, the principal cause of death among Malaysian adults was coronary artery disease, representing 17% of the medically certified deaths in 2020—being followed by pneumonia; which accounted for 11% of the deaths. Transport accidents are considered a major health hazard, as Malaysia, relative to its population, has one of the highest traffic fatality rates in the world. Smoking is also considered a major health issue across the country.
Education.
The education system of Malaysia features a non-compulsory kindergarten education followed by six years of compulsory primary education and five years of optional secondary education. Schools in the primary education system are divided into two categories: national primary schools, which teach in Malay (i.e.:Sekolah Kebangsaan Sungai Binjai, SK Bukit Tiu), and vernacular schools, which teach in Chinese or Tamil (i.e.:SJK(C) Pin Hwa 2, SJK(T) Bandar Mentakab). Secondary education (i.e.:SMK Sura, Kajang High School) is conducted for five years. In the final year of secondary education, students sit for the Malaysian Certificate of Education examination. Since the introduction of the matriculation programme in 1999, students who completed the 12-month programme in matriculation colleges can enroll in local universities. However, in the matriculation system, only 10 percent of places are open to non-"bumiputera" students.
Culture.
Malaysia has a multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multilingual society. Substantial influence exists from Chinese and Indian culture, dating back to when foreign trade began. Other cultural influences include the Persian, Arabic, and British cultures. Due to the structure of the government, coupled with the social contract theory, there has been minimal cultural assimilation of ethnic minorities. Some cultural disputes exist between Malaysia and neighbouring countries, notably Indonesia.
In 1971, the government created a "National Cultural Policy", defining Malaysian culture. It stated that Malaysian culture must be based on the culture of the indigenous peoples of Malaysia, that it may incorporate suitable elements from other cultures, and that Islam must play a part in it. It also promoted the Malay language above others. This government intervention into culture has caused resentment among non-Malays who feel their cultural freedom was lessened. Both Chinese and Indian associations have submitted memorandums to the government, accusing it of formulating an undemocratic culture policy.
Fine arts.
Traditional Malaysian art was mainly centred on the areas of carving, weaving, and silversmithing. Traditional art ranges from handwoven baskets from rural areas to the silverwork of the Malay courts. Common artworks included ornamental kris, beetle nut sets, and woven batik and songket fabrics. Indigenous East Malaysians are known for their wooden masks. Each ethnic group have distinct performing arts, with little overlap between them. However, Malay art does show some North Indian influence due to the historical influence of India.
Traditional Malay music and performing arts appear to have originated in the Kelantan-Pattani region with influences from India, China, Thailand, and Indonesia. The music is based around percussion instruments, the most important of which is the gendang (drum). There are at least 14 types of traditional drums. Drums and other traditional percussion instruments and are often made from natural materials. Music is traditionally used for storytelling, celebrating life-cycle events, and occasions such as a harvest. It was once used as a form of long-distance communication. In East Malaysia, gong-based musical ensembles such as agung and kulintang are commonly used in ceremonies such as funerals and weddings. These ensembles are also common in neighbouring regions such as in Mindanao in the Philippines, Kalimantan in Indonesia and Brunei.
Malaysia has a strong oral tradition that has existed since before the arrival of writing and continues today. Each of the Malay Sultanates created their own literary tradition, influenced by pre-existing oral stories and by the stories that came with Islam. The first Malay literature was in the Arabic script. The earliest known Malay writing is on the Terengganu stone, made in 1303. Chinese and Indian literature became common as the number of speakers increased in Malaysia, and locally produced works based on languages from those areas began to be produced in the 19th century. English has also become a common literary language. In 1971, the government took the step of defining the literature of different languages. Literature written in Malay was called "the national literature of Malaysia", literature in other "bumiputera" languages was called "regional literature", while literature in other languages was called "sectional literature". Malay poetry is highly developed, and uses many forms. The "Hikayat" form is popular, and the "pantun" has spread from Malay to other languages.
Cuisine.
Malaysia's cuisine reflects the multi-ethnic makeup of its population. Many cultures from within the country and from surrounding regions have greatly influenced the cuisine. Much of the influence comes from the Malay, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Javanese, and Sumatran cultures, largely due to the country being part of the ancient spice route. The cuisine is very similar to that of Singapore and Brunei, and also bears resemblance to Filipino cuisine. The different states have varied dishes, and often the food in Malaysia is different from the original dishes.
Sometimes food not found in its original culture is assimilated into another; for example, Chinese restaurants in Malaysia often serve Malay dishes. Food from one culture is sometimes also cooked using styles taken from another culture, For example, "sambal belacan" (shrimp paste) are commonly used as ingredients by Chinese restaurants to create the stir fried water spinach ("kangkung belacan"). This means that although much of Malaysian food can be traced back to a certain culture, they have their own identity. Rice is a staple food and an important constituent of the country's culture. Chili is commonly found in local cuisine, although this does not necessarily make them spicy.
Media.
Malaysia's main newspapers are owned by the government and political parties in the ruling coalition, although some major opposition parties also have their own, which are openly sold alongside regular newspapers. A divide exists between the media in the two halves of the country. Peninsular-based media gives a low priority to news from the East and often treats the eastern states as colonies of the peninsula. As a result of this, the East Malaysia region of Sarawak launched TV Sarawak as internet streaming beginning in 2014, and as TV station on 10 October 2020 to overcome the low priority and coverage of Peninsular-based media and to solidify the representation of East Malaysia. The media have been blamed for increasing tension between Indonesia and Malaysia, and giving Malaysians a bad image of Indonesians. The country has Malay, English, Chinese, and Tamil daily newspapers. Kadazandusun and Bajau news are available only via TV broadcast Berita RTM. Written Kadazan news was once included in publications such as The Borneo Post, the Borneo Mail, the Daily Express, and the New Sabah Times, but publication has ceased with the newspaper or as a section.
Freedom of the press is limited, with numerous restrictions on publishing rights and information dissemination. The government has previously tried to crack down on opposition papers before elections. In 2007, a government agency issued a directive to all private television and radio stations to refrain from broadcasting speeches made by opposition leaders, a move condemned by politicians from the opposition Democratic Action Party. Sabah, where all tabloids but one are independent of government control, has the freest press in Malaysia. Laws such as the Printing Presses and Publications Act have also been cited as curtailing freedom of expression.
Holidays and festivals.
Malaysians observe several holidays and festivities throughout the year. Some are federally gazetted public holidays and some are observed by individual states. Other festivals are observed by particular ethnic or religious groups, and the main holiday of each major group has been declared a public holiday. The most observed national holiday is "Hari Merdeka" (Independence Day) on 31 August, commemorating the independence of the Federation of Malaya in 1957. Malaysia Day on 16 September commemorates federation in 1963. Other notable national holidays are Labour Day (1 May) and the King's birthday (first week of June).
Muslim holidays are prominent as Islam is the state religion; "Hari Raya Puasa" (also called "Hari Raya Aidilfitri", Malay for Eid al-Fitr), "Hari Raya Haji" (also called "Hari Raya Aidiladha", Malay for Eid al-Adha), "Maulidur Rasul" (birthday of the Prophet), and others being observed. Malaysian Chinese celebrate festivals such as Chinese New Year and others relating to traditional Chinese beliefs. Wesak Day is observed and celebrated by Buddhists. Hindus in Malaysia celebrate "Deepavali", the festival of lights, while "Thaipusam" is a religious rite which sees pilgrims from all over the country converge at the Batu Caves. Malaysia's Christian community celebrates most of the holidays observed by Christians elsewhere, most notably Christmas and Easter. In addition to this, the Dayak community in Sarawak celebrate a harvest festival known as "Gawai", and the Kadazandusun community celebrate "Kaamatan". Despite most festivals being identified with a particular ethnic or religious group, celebrations are universal. In a custom known as "open house" Malaysians participate in the celebrations of others, often visiting the houses of those who identify with the festival.
Sports.
Popular sports in Malaysia include association football, badminton, field hockey, bowls, tennis, squash, martial arts, horse riding, sailing, and skate boarding. Football is the most popular sport in Malaysia. Badminton matches also attract thousands of spectators, and since 1948 Malaysia has been one of four countries to hold the Thomas Cup, the world team championship trophy of men's badminton. The Malaysian Lawn Bowls Federation was registered in 1997. Squash was brought to the country by members of the British army, with the first competition being held in 1939. The Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia was created on 25 June 1972. The men's national field hockey team ranked 10th in the world as of June 2022[ [update]]. The 3rd Hockey World Cup was hosted at Merdeka Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, as well as the 10th cup. The country also has its own Formula One track – the Sepang International Circuit, with the first Malaysian Grand Prix held in 1999. Traditional sports include Silat Melayu, the most common style of martial arts practised by ethnic Malays.
The Federation of Malaya Olympic Council was formed in 1953, and received recognition by the IOC in 1954. It first participated in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. The council was renamed the Olympic Council of Malaysia in 1964, and has participated in all but one Olympic games since its inception. The largest number of athletes ever sent to the Olympics was 57 to the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Besides the Olympic Games, Malaysia also participates in the Paralympic Games. Malaysia has competed at the Commonwealth Games since 1950 as Malaya, and 1966 as Malaysia, and the games were hosted in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.
Notes.
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References.
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Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, in central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name, and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020. The former capital of the state of Hesse-Kassel, it has many palaces and parks, including the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Kassel is also known for the "documenta" exhibitions of contemporary art. Kassel has a public university with 25,000 students (2018) and a multicultural population (39% of the citizens in 2017 had a migration background).
History.
Kassel was first mentioned in 913 AD, as the place where two deeds were signed by King Conrad I. The place was called "Chasella" or "Chassalla" and was a fortification at a bridge crossing the Fulda river. There are several yet unproven assumptions about the origin of the name. It could be derived from the ancient "Castellum Cattorum", a castle of the Chatti, a German tribe that had lived in the area since Roman times. Another assumption is a portmanteau from Frankonian "cas", meaning ‘valley’ or ‘recess’, and "sali" meaning ‘hall’ or ‘service building’, which can be interpreted as ‘(town) hall in a valley’.
A deed from 1189 certifies that Cassel had city rights, but the date when they were granted is not known.
The first castle in Kassel was constructed in 1277, later replaced by a Renaissance castle, the Kassel City Palace, which burned down in 1811.
In 1567 the Landgraviate of Hesse, until then centered in Marburg, was divided among four sons, with Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) becoming one of its successor states. Kassel was its capital and became a centre of Calvinist Protestantism in Germany. Strong fortifications were built to protect the Protestant stronghold against Catholic enemies. Secret societies, such as Rosicrucianism, came to the rise, with Christian Rosenkreutz's work "Fama Fraternitatis" first published in 1617. In 1685 Kassel became a refuge for 1,700 Huguenots, who found shelter in the newly established borough of Oberneustadt. Landgrave Charles, who was responsible for this humanitarian act, also ordered the construction of the "Oktogon" (Hercules monument) and of the "Orangerie". In the late 18th century, Hesse-Kassel became infamous for selling mercenaries (Hessians) to the British crown to help suppress the American Revolution and to finance the construction of palaces and the Landgrave's opulent lifestyle.
The Brothers Grimm lived in Kassel in the early 19th century, where they collected and wrote most of their fairy tales. At that time, around 1803, the Landgraviate was elevated to a Principality and its ruler to "Prince-elector". Shortly after, it was annexed by Napoleon and became the capital of the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia under Napoleon's brother Jérômein 1807. The Electorate was restored in 1813.
Having sided with Austria in the Austro-Prussian War to gain supremacy in Germany, the principality was annexed by Prussia in 1866. The Prussian administration united Nassau, Frankfurt and Hesse-Kassel into the new Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau. Kassel ceased to be a princely residence but soon developed into a major industrial centre as well as a major railway junction. Henschel & Son, the largest railway locomotive manufacturer in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, was based in Kassel.
In 1870, after the Battle of Sedan, Napoleon III was sent as a prisoner to the Wilhelmshöhe Palace above the city. During World War I, the German military headquarters were located in the Wilhelmshöhe Palace. In the late 1930s, Nazis destroyed Heinrich Hübsch's Kassel Synagogue.
During World War II, Kassel was the headquarters for Germany's Wehrkreis IX, and a local subcamp of Dachau concentration camp provided forced labour for the Henschel facilities, which included tank production plants. There was also a camp for Sinti and Romani people (see "Romani Holocaust"). Allied prisoners of war from the Stalag IX-A POW camp were deployed to forced labour in the local arms industry in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The most severe bombing of Kassel in World War II destroyed 90% of the downtown area, and some 10,000 people were killed and 150,000 were made homeless. Most of the casualties were civilians or wounded soldiers recuperating in local hospitals, whereas factories survived the attack generally undamaged. Karl Gerland replaced the regional Gauleiter, Karl Weinrich, soon after the raid.
The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Kassel at the beginning of April 1945. The US 80th Infantry Division captured Kassel in house-to-house fighting during 1–4 April 1945, which included numerous German panzer-grenadier counterattacks, and resulted in further damage to bombed and unbombed structures alike.
Post-war, most of the ancient buildings in the city centre were not restored, and large parts of the inner city area were completely rebuilt in the style of the 1950s. A few historic buildings, however, such as the Museum Fridericianum, were restored.
In 1949, the interim parliament ("Parlamentarischer Rat") eliminated Kassel in the first round as a city to become the provisional capital of the Federal Republic of Germany, which the western city of Bonn won.
In 1964, the town hosted the fourth "Hessentag" state festival.
In 1970, the Chancellor of West Germany Willy Brandt and the prime minister of the German Democratic Republic Willy Stoph met in Wilhelmshöhe Palace for negotiations between the two German states. In 1991, the central rail station moved from "Hauptbahnhof" ("main station") to "Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe", the former now being used exclusively for regional trains. The city had a dynamic economic and social development in the recent years, reducing the unemployment rate by half and attracting new citizens.
Economy.
Several international operating companies have factories or headquarters in the city (Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, SMA, Wintershall, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Rheinmetall, Bombardier). The city is home to several hospitals; the public Klinikum Kassel is one of the largest hospitals in the federal state.
Geography.
Kassel is the largest city in the north of the federated state of Hesse in the south-western part of Germany, about 70 kilometers northwest of the geographic center of Germany.
It is located on both sides of the river Fulda. Kassel's deepest point is in the north-eastern Fulda valley at 132.9 m above sea level.
The urban area of Kassel is divided into 23 local districts, each of which has a local council with a local mayor as chairman. The local councils are elected every five years by the population of the local districts. The local advisory board can be heard on all important issues affecting the local district. However, the final decision on a measure rests with the Kassel city council.
Neighboring communities.
Around Kassel is the administrative district ("Landkreis") of Landkreis Kassel. The following cities and municipalities border the city of Kassel (starting clockwise in the north): Ahnatal, Vellmar, Fuldatal, Staufenberg, Niestetal, Kaufungen, Lohfelden, Fuldabrück, Baunatal, Schauenburg, Habichtswald. Of these, Vellmar and Fuldatal in the north, Kaufungen in the east, Lohfelden in the southeast and Baunatal in the south are growing closer to the urban area.
Culture.
The first German observatory was built in Kassel in 1558, and a later version from 1714 survives as the Bellevue Palace. The "Ottoneum", the first permanent German theatre building, was built in 1606. The old building is today the Natural History Museum, and the now-called Staatstheater Kassel is located in a nearby building that was constructed in the 1950s.
Since 1927, Kassel has been home to Bärenreiter, a music publishing house distributing compositions of several critically acclaimed classical musicians.
Since 1955 the "documenta", an international exhibition of modern and contemporary art, has been held regularly in Kassel. The "documenta" now takes place every five years. As a result of the "documenta 6" in 1977, Kassel became the first city in the world to be illuminated by laser beams at night (Laserscape, by artist Horst H. Baumann). This laser installation is nowadays still visible at weekends. Artworks from former editions of the "documenta" (mainly sculptures) can be found in multiple places in Kassel; among those are the "7000 Oaks", a work of land art by the German artist Joseph Beuys. The latest/current edition of the "documenta", known as "documenta 15", ran from 18 June until 25 September 2022.
Climate.
Kassel experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb") close to marine climates, with a more notable continental influence than Berlin. Using the 1961–1990 normal and 0 °C isotherm, the city already had a humid continental climate ("Dfb").
Demographics.
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Kassel has a population of about 200,000, and is the 3rd largest city in Hesse state and the only large city in the North Hesse region.
Kassel is often called the city that located on the center of Germany due to its position.
Kassel first reached its first population peak of over 100,000 in 1899, and its second in 1943 with about 225,000. Kassel was destroyed during World War II and became an industrial city in 1950s. Today, Kassel is home to multiple companies and universities.
Sights.
The bombing raids of 1943 destroyed 90% of the city center. The city center was almost completely rebuilt during the 1950s and is a combination of renovated or reconstructed old buildings and architecture of the 1950s. Outside the city center, the suburbs are dominated by 19th-century architecture. Timber-framed old towns are situated in suburbs like Harleshausen and Bad Wilhelmshöhe. The oldest monument is the Druselturm; the Brüderkirche and the Martinskirche are also, in part, of medieval origin. The towers of the Martinskirche are from the 1950s.
Churches.
St. Martin, Kassel.
The main Protestant church of Kassel, it was begun in 1364 and finished in 1462. Severely damaged by British bombing in 1943, it was later reconstructed in a more modern style between 1954 and 1958.
St. Bonifatius, Kassel.
St. Bonifatius was designed and built in 1956 by Josef Bieling.
Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe.
The complex includes Wilhelmshöhe Palace (with the Antiquities Collection and Old Masters), the Hercules monument, and the Lions Castle.
Wilhelmshöhe Palace above the city was built in 1786, by landgrave Wilhelm IX of Hesse-Kassel. The palace is now a museum and houses an important collection of Graeco-Roman antiques and a fine gallery of paintings comprising the second largest collection of Rembrandts in Germany. It is surrounded by the beautiful Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe with many appealing sights. The complex was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013.
The Hercules monument is a huge octagonal stone structure carrying a giant replica of Hercules "Farnese" (now at Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, Italy). From its base down to Wilhelmshöhe Palace runs a long set of artificial cascades. Every Sunday and Wednesday afternoon at 14:30 (from May until October), the famous water features take place, which start at the Oktagon, and during a one-hour walk through the park visitors can follow the water's way until they reach the lake of the Wilhelmshöhe Palace, where a fountain of about marks the end of the features.
The "Löwenburg" ("Lions Castle") is a replica of a medieval castle, also built during the reign of Wilhelm IX. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Napoléon III was imprisoned in Wilhelmshöhe. In 1918, Wilhelmshöhe became the seat of the German Army High Command (OHL); it was there that the military commanders Hindenburg and Ludendorff prepared the German capitulation.
Staatspark Karlsaue (Karlsaue Park).
The Karlsaue is a large park along the Fulda River that is part of the European Garden Heritage Network. Established in the 16th century, it is known for the Orangerie, a palace built in 1710 as a summer residence for the landgraves. Today, the Orangerie contains the Museum of Astronomy and Technology, with a scale model of the Solar System spanning the entire park and beyond.
In addition, the Park Schönfeld contains a small, municipal botanical garden, the Botanischer Garten Kassel.
Art museums.
Europe's first public museum, the Museum Fridericianum, was founded in 1779. By the end of the 19th century, the museum held one of the largest collections of watches and clocks in the world.
Other art museums in Kassel include:
Sports.
Hessen Kassel is the football club in the city, who plays in the Hessenliga after being relegated from the Regionalliga Südwest in the 2017/2018 season. The city's own football stadium, the Auestadion was built in 1953 and is able to hold 18,737 people. It is located in the south of Kassel at the quarter Südstadt, next to the Karlsaue.
Kassel has a long ice hockey tradition, but it was not until 1977 that the Kassel ice rink (Eissporthalle) opened on a private initiative. The Kassel Huskies were founding members of the DEL in 1994, belonging to the league from 1994 to 2006 and again from 2008 to 2010. In 1997, they were runners-up in the championship playoffs, losing to Adler Mannheim, and reached the semi-finals on three more occasions. The Huskies ran into financial difficulties and dissolved in 2010. The "Young Huskies", which is a junior and youth hockey club, decided to enter a men's team in the Hessenliga. This is the fifth division and the lowest men's competition in the state of Hesse. The new club was expecting no more than 3,000 supporters for the first home game in the Hessenliga. However, they had over 5,000 supporters come to watch.
Transport.
Kassel has seven tram lines (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), with trams arriving usually every 15 minutes. The city also operates a light rail Stadtbahn network called "RegioTram" using Regio Citadis low-floor trams which run on both tram and main line railway tracks with three lines (RT1, RT4, RT5). Moreover, a number of low-floor buses complete the Kassel public transport system. The introduction of low-floor buses led to the development of the Kassel kerb which improves the accessibility at bus stops.
The city is connected to the national rail network at two stations, Kassel Central, and Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe. The traditional central station (Hauptbahnhof) has been reduced to the status of a regional station since the opening of the Hanover-Würzburg high-speed rail line in 1991 and its station (Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe) on the high-speed line at which the InterCityExpress (ICE) and InterCity services call as well as Nightjet and Flixtrain.
Kassel is connected to the motorways A 7, A 49 and A 44.
The city is served by Kassel Calden Airport.
Politics.
Mayor.
The current mayor of Kassel is Sven Schoeller of Alliance 90/The Greens, who was elected in March 2023. He succeeded Christian Geselle (SPD), who had been in office since 2017.
City council.
The Kassel city council ("Stadtverordnetenversammlung") governs the city alongside the Mayor. The most recent city council election was held on 14 March 2021, and the results were as follows:
Education and research.
University of Kassel.
The University of Kassel is a public higher education institution and was founded in 1971 as a so-called reform university. It is the newest university in the state of Hessen and has an urban inner-city campus between the city center and the Northern city district. There were around 25,000 students enrolled at the university in 2018, 3,359 of them non-Germans. Two hundred and twenty-four students obtained their doctorate from the university in 2017.
The university offers a range of study programs, and several English master's programs as well as two short-term international programs, the Summer University and the Winter University. The Kunsthochschule Kassel (University of Fine Arts) is also part of the university with a satellite campus directly at the Karlsaue park in the Southern city district.
Courts.
Several courts are located in Kassel, including:
Twin towns – sister cities.
Kassel is twinned with:
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References.
Notes.
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External links.
 Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
 travel guide from Wikivoyage

John Dury
Scottish Calvinist minister and intellectual
John Dury (1596 in Edinburgh – 1680 in Kassel) was a Scottish Calvinist minister and an intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved to Kassel in 1661, but he did not accomplish this. He was also a preacher, pamphleteer, and writer.
Early life.
He was the fourth son of the exiled Scottish presbyterian minister Robert Durie; John was brought up in the Netherlands, at Leiden, attending the university there. He was in Cologne, at the Walloon Church, 1624-6, and subsequently at Elbląg (Elbing). He was a close associate of Samuel Hartlib, a native of Elbląg, whom he met there, and shared his interest in education. According to Richard Popkin, another key influence was Joseph Mede, from whom Dury took a method of scriptural interpretation; this interpretation has been challenged by recent research claiming that Dury developed his "Scriptural Analysis" before meeting with the works of Mede. While at Elbing he translated an anti-trinitarian work of Samuel Przypkowski into English.
From 1628 Dury petitioned Gustavus Adolphus for help in the cause of Protestant unity. He spent much time from 1630 to 1661 wandering through Europe, working for ecclesiastical peace between Calvinists and Lutherans. Through an introduction from Hartlib, he also met Comenius, who spent some years in Elbing as well.
Up to 1633, Dury had Anglican support from George Abbot. In that year, Abbot died and was replaced by William Laud, with whom Dury had a much more difficult relationship; Christopher Hill states "Laud had no use for the efforts of Comenius, Dury and Hartlib to reunite Protestants". Dury was ordained in 1634, and went to Sweden, supported by 38 English Puritans. The networking of Dury and Hartlib in the 1630s brought them close to Oliver Cromwell, through Oliver St John (a relation by marriage, and friend) and the Godmanchester preacher Walter Welles, a neighbour.
Dury then travelled widely in northern Europe, and was tutor to Mary, Princess of Orange in the Hague. He had a long though unproductive meeting with René Descartes in 1635; also in the Netherlands he was an associate of Adam Boreel and Petrus Serrarius, and an influential figure.
In Civil War and Commonwealth England.
At a key moment in English and European politics, Dury in August 1641 published "Concerning the Work of Peace Ecclesiastical", urging Protestants to unite across national boundaries. This work was dedicated to his patron Sir Thomas Rowe, and had been written in 1638. In 1639 Viscount Mandeville was writing to Dury, in the context that the situation in particular of German Protestants was being mooted and linked to the possibility of the English and Scottish churches could organise or broker such a union.
In 1641, Dury and Comenius came to England; an invitation had been mooted in a sermon by John Gauden in 1641, at the start of the Long Parliament. The backers of the scheme to bring Comenius then included John Pym and Lord Brooke as well as Mandeville.
Dury gave a well-known sermon to the Parliament on 26 November 1645, "Israels Call to March out of Babylon into Jerusalem". He was given an official appointment, as tutor to the younger children of Charles I; from 1646 these had been in the care of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland.
After the war in England had ended, he argued both for religious toleration, and for acceptance of the Parliamentarian regime. He incurred the displeasure of the Westminster Assembly, to which he belonged, for his part in the 1648 publication (with Hartlib and John Goodwin) in the translation of part the theological work "Satanae Strategemata" of Jacob Acontius on toleration. He called on the Ranter Abiezer Coppe to repent, and helped in drafting his recantation. He provided arguments in pamphlets of March and October 1649 for supporting the Rump Parliament. Hill places Dury with Anthony Ascham and Marchamont Nedham as propounding the theory that Parliament had legitimacy conferred by God because it held power "de facto". Barbara Lewalski calls Dury's arguments 'Hobbesian'. Hill considers that the failure of Cromwell's plan to create a unified Protestant church in England of the 1650s put paid to Dury's ecumenical ideas.
In 1652 he translated John Milton's "Eikonoklastes" into French as "Eikonoklastēs, ou, Réponse au livre intitulé Eikon basilikē". In 1655 Milton quoted from letters of Dury in his "Pro se defensio contra Alexandrum Morum".
In 1654 he was sent as a diplomat by Oliver Cromwell to Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1652/3 he had travelled with Bulstrode Whitelocke to Sweden.
He also worked with Whitelocke as a deputy librarian, from 1649, of the collection going back to Jane Lumley. His book of 1650 on librarianship, sometimes said to be the first such work, came out of his experience in this post.
Jews and Hebraists.
Dury met Manasseh ben Israel in 1644, and heard from him an account of Antonio de Montesinos's alleged discovery of the Ten Tribes in America. Dury wrote in favour of a Hartlib Circle project, for a College of Jewish Studies. Parliament was lobbied for funds. The proposed faculty were Johann Stephanus Rittangel, Christian Ravius and Menasseh ben Israel.
In 1649 Dury addressed a further inquiry to Manasseh on the subject of the Ten Tribes, which resulted in the publication of "The Hope of Israel". In 1650 appeared Thomas Thorowgood's "Jewes in America"; Dury read it in manuscript, and contributed to later editions. He included information on the Karaites, in whom he had a particular interest, from Rittangel.
Dury is considered to have been one of those around Cromwell influencing the decision to allow Jews to enter England officially (they were expelled by Edward I). He was the cautious author of a pamphlet of 1656, "A Case of Conscience: Whether It Be Lawful to Admit Jews into a Christian Commonwealth", in it he laid down certain conditions that Jews must fulfil in order to be admitted (no blasphemy or proselytism etc). To a question put to him by Hartlib, as to the general lawfulness of their admission, Dury replied in the affirmative; but from the point of view of expediency, he considered that circumstances as to a particular time and place might render their admission unwise.
Irenicism and millenarianism.
Dury's long ecumenical efforts have earned him a name as an irenicist. This territory he shared, to an extent, with his contemporary Hugo Grotius. Dury made contact with Grotius through his follower Samson Johnson (1603–1661). That relationship soured, since Dury had a hand in Johnson's dismissal as chaplain to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, suspected of Socinianism. According to historian Hugh Trevor-Roper,
"Dury, like Grotius, was an idealist, but their ideals were not quite the same. He wished to achieve not reunion for the peace of the Church but union of all Protestants for the holy war: in particular union of Lutherans and Calvinists".
Dury’s irenicism and philosemitism can be understood as interrelated aspects of an expansionist Protestant cause focussed on Britain, Ireland, continental Europe, and the Atlantic world. In this understanding, the Portuguese Jews (and American Indians) appear as victims of Spanish Catholicism in desperate need of Protestant help.
Richard Popkin and Jefferey Jue have argued that Dury was a millenarian. His millenarian views are said to have pointed to 1655 as apocalyptic. Against that view it has been argued that Dury warned readers about attempts to predict the onset of the Millennium. In his preface to the millenarian tract "Clavis Apocalyptica" Dury seems to come out against the idea of a political millenarianism and to defend a more "moral" interpretation of millenarianism.
Pansophism and alchemy.
Alchemy was within the interests of the Hartlibian group, and both Dury and his wife were involved. In 1649 they were quizzing Worsley on distillation. In the first half of 1651 Dury was a witness to George Starkey, in an apparent transmutation, and then recommended Starkey to Moriaen.
Family.
In 1645 he married Dorothy Moore (née King), an Irish Puritan widow. Dorothy Durie (sic), daughter of Sir John King and Catherine Drury, was a noted writer on education and the role of women in the church. The match was arranged by Dorothy's niece, Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh (1615–1691), daughter of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, and wife of Arthur Jones, 2nd Viscount Ranelagh. To be precise on the somewhat tenuous relationship, Arthur Moore, Dorothy's first husband, and Frances Jones née Moore, mother of Arthur Jones, were brother and sister, both children of Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore. By this marriage Dury was connected to Robert Boyle, brother of Lady Ranelagh.
Their daughter Dora Katherina Dury (1654–77) was Henry Oldenburg's second wife. Dorothy also had two sons by her first husband.
Notes.
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Ian Dury
British new wave singer (1942–2000)
Ian Robins Dury (12 May 1942 – 27 March 2000) was an English singer, songwriter and actor who rose to fame in the late 1970s, during the punk and new wave era of rock music. He was the lead singer and lyricist of Kilburn and the High Roads, the Kilburns, Ian Dury and the Blockheads and Ian Dury and the Music Students.
Early life and education.
Ian Dury was born at 43 Weald Rise in Harrow, at that time in Middlesex. His early years were spent in Harrow Weald (although it's often misreported that he was born in Upminster, Essex, an impression he often encouraged) and in Mevagissey, Cornwall, during the Blitz. His father, William George Dury (born 23 September 1905 in Southborough, Kent, died 25 February 1968 in Victoria, London), was a former boxer, coach and bus driver, and chauffeur for Rolls-Royce. His mother, Margaret "Peggy" Cuthbertson Walker (born 17 April 1910, Rochdale, Lancashire, died 20 December 1994 in Hampstead, London), was a health visitor, a doctor's daughter and the granddaughter of an East Donegal Ulster Protestant landowner. Bill and Peggy married in 1939 and set up home in Belsize Park, London.
Bill Dury was absent for work for long periods, so Peggy often took Ian to stay with her parents in Mevagissey. After the Second World War, the family moved briefly to Switzerland, where Ian's father was chauffeuring for a millionaire and the Western European Union. In 1946, Peggy brought Ian back to England and they relocated to Cranham, near Upminster in Essex, to live with Peggy's sisters. Although he saw his father on visits, they were never to live together again.
At age seven, Dury contracted polio, most likely, he believed, at Westcliff Swimming Pool in Southend-on-Sea during the 1949 polio epidemic. After six weeks of isolation in the Royal Cornwall Infirmary, Truro, Ian was moved by ambulance back to Essex, to Black Notley Hospital in Braintree, where he spent eighteen months regaining his strength and mobility. Polio caused paralysis on the left-hand side of his body which led to a permanent disability.
Ian attended Chailey Heritage Craft School, East Sussex, from 1951 till 1954. Chailey was a hospital school for disabled children that had an ethos of toughening up its students, often by leaving the less physically able to find their own way up off the floor. Arguably, this harsh approach contributed to the tough and determined person Dury became. Chailey taught trades such as cobbling and printing, but Dury's mother wanted him to focus on academic studies, so Aunt Moll (Mary Walker), a Buckinghamshire Education Officer, arranged for him to attend the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe. Ian found this school a challenge and recounted being punished for misdemeanours by being forced by prefects to learn long tracts of poetry until a housemaster found him sobbing and put a stop to it:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />I had to go into a box room where the suitcases were stored and learn 80 lines of "Ode to Autumn" by yer man Keats. If I got a word wrong I had to go back, they added that to the end of the sentence and after five nights of this my head had definitely gone. He left school at 16, having achieved GCE 'O' levels in English Language, English Literature and Art to study art and design at Walthamstow College of Art, where he met lifelong friend, pop artist and teacher Peter Blake. In 1963 Ian began an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1966.
Art career.
In 1967 Dury took part in a group exhibition, "Fantasy and Figuration", alongside Elizabeth Rathmell, Pat Douthwaite, Herbert Kitchen and Stass Paraskos at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.
Between 1966 and 1973 he was an art teacher at Luton College of Technology and at Canterbury College of Art. He also painted commercial illustrations for "The Sunday Times" in the early 1970s.
Music career.
Kilburn and the High Roads (1971–1975).
Dury formed Kilburn and the High Roads (a reference to the road in North West London) in 1971, and they played their first gig at Croydon School of Art on 5 December 1971. Dury was vocalist and lyricist, co-writing with pianist Russell Hardy and later enrolling into the group a number of the students he was teaching at Canterbury College of Art (now the University for the Creative Arts), including bassist Humphrey Ocean.
Managed first by Charlie Gillett and Gordon Nelki and latterly by fashion entrepreneur Tommy Roberts, the Kilburns were popular on London's pub rock circuit and signed to Dawn Records in 1974 but, despite favourable press coverage and a tour opening for English rock band The Who, the group failed to rise above cult status and disbanded in 1975.
Kilburn and the High Roads recorded two albums, "Handsome" and "Wotabunch!".
Going solo (August – September 1977).
The single "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll", released 26 August 1977, marked Dury's Stiff Records debut. Although it was banned by the BBC, it was named Single of the Week by "NME" on its release. The single issue was soon followed, at the end of September, by the album "New Boots and Panties!!" which achieved platinum status. "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" was not listed on the album's track list, yet it was nonetheless present as track 1 on side 2 of some later 1977 pressings).
The Blockheads (October 1977 – present).
Under the management of Andrew King and Peter Jenner, the original managers of Pink Floyd, Ian Dury and the Blockheads quickly gained a reputation as one of the top live acts of new wave music.
The Blockheads' sound drew from its members' diverse musical influences, which included jazz, rock and roll, funk, and reggae, and Dury's love of music hall. The band was formed after Dury began writing songs with pianist and guitarist Chaz Jankel (the brother of music video, TV, commercial and film director Annabel Jankel). Jankel took Dury's lyrics, fashioned a number of songs, and they began recording with members of Radio Caroline's Loving Awareness Band – drummer Charley Charles (born Hugh Glenn Mortimer Charles, Guyana 1945), bassist Norman Watt-Roy, keyboard player Mick Gallagher, guitarist John Turnbull and former Kilburns saxophonist Davey Payne.
In October 1977 Dury and his band started performing as Ian Dury and the Blockheads, when the band signed on for the Stiff "Live Stiffs Tour" alongside Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, and Larry Wallis. The tour was a success, and Stiff launched a concerted Ian Dury marketing campaign, resulting in the Top Ten hit "What a Waste" and the hit single "