Malaysia 🇲🇾

Malaysia lies in South-Eastern Asia, part of Asia. The short and official forms of the name are the same. Kuala Lumpur is the capital.

By land area it covers 330,803 km², which ranks it 69th of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Vietnam and just ahead of Norway. That makes it almost exactly the same size as Vietnam.

Around 35.6 million people live there, placing it 44th of 249 by population — between Uzbekistan above it and Saudi Arabia below. Within South-Eastern Asia alone it is the 6th largest of 11 and the 6th most populous.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 2.5° N, 112.5° E, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 278 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

The equator passes across it. Colombia, Kenya and Uganda sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

3 countries share a land border with it: Brunei, Indonesia and Thailand. The largest of them by area is Indonesia, which is also the most populous. Together those neighbours hold about 355.6 million people.

Unlike its landlocked neighbours it reaches the sea directly, while also sharing land frontiers.

Density comes out at around 107 people per square kilometre, which makes it more crowded than the typical entry on this list. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

The demonym is Malaysian, so residents are Malaysians.

It recognises 2 languages: English and Malay. English, the first listed, is shared with 90 other entries worldwide.

Inside Asia it places 18th of 50 by population, and it accounts for 5.1% of everyone living in South-Eastern Asia.

The Malaysian ringgit (MYR) is used only in Malaysia among the 249 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Malaysia among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

Zoom in from the world to South-Eastern Asia and Malaysia sits 6th of 11 by population and 6th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Myanmar just above and Cambodia just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Indonesia is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in South-Eastern Asia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇲🇲 Myanmar
• 🇰🇭 Cambodia
• 🇮🇩 Indonesia

Put next to every other entry on this site, Malaysia ranks 69th of 249 by area and 44th by population. That works out at 0.22% of the combined land area of all 249 entries and 0.44% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Malaysia in the size ordering are Vietnam at 331,212 km² and Norway at 323,802 km², against Malaysia's 330,803 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Malaysia averages 107 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it middling in density — 109th of the 247 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

It uses the Malaysian ringgit (RM, MYR). That currency appears nowhere else on this list.

The top-level domain is .my. The international dialling code is +60. In ISO terms it is my in two letters and MYS in three.

Kuala Lumpur is the seat of government and the answer most quizzes are looking for.

Malaysia is one of the 192 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.