Malaysia is a new nation in more ways than one — her development as an organized community has taken place almost entirely within the last century and a half. Kuala Lumpur, the capital, and now the major centre of population and industry, was settled only after tin was discovered there in 1860. In the late 19th century the total population was a small fraction of the current 30 million, probably well under a million people. They were mostly seafaring tribesmen who lived in wood and attap-thatched villages straggling along the muddy banks of river estuaries. Apart from the brief and limited traditions of Malacca and Johore there was little sense of nationhood.
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