Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is a big city in Malaysia. It is the capital.

Many people call it KL. It has very tall buildings, parks and trains.

Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia. It sits in the west-central part of Peninsular Malaysia, about 40 kilometers from its seaport, Port Kelang, on the Strait of Malacca. It is the country's largest urban area and its center for culture, business and transport.

The 2020 census counted 1,982,112 people in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. The Department of Statistics Malaysia estimates about 2.08 million for 2026. Millions more live in the Klang Valley, the wider metropolitan area around the city.

Kuala Lumpur lies in west-central Peninsular Malaysia, midway along the west coast tin and rubber belt and about 40 km east of its seaport, Port Kelang, on the Strait of Malacca. In 1972 it was made a municipality, and in 1974 the city and nearby parts of the surrounding state of Selangor became a federal territory of 243 km².

The 2020 census counted 1,982,112 people in the federal territory. The Department of Statistics Malaysia's mid-year estimate for 2026 is 2,082,300, including about 869,000 Malay, 728,000 Chinese and 177,000 Indian Malaysian citizens and about 273,000 non-citizens. Many federal offices moved to the new city of Putrajaya, about 25 km to the south, around the turn of the 21st century, but Kuala Lumpur remained the capital.

Two silver towers stand side by side in Kuala Lumpur. They look like twins.

A bridge high in the sky joins them. Lots of other tall buildings stand nearby.

Kuala Lumpur's business district, called the Golden Triangle, lies on the east side of the Kelang River. Here stand the Petronas Twin Towers, 452 meters tall, with 88 floors each. Seen from above, each floor is shaped like an eight-pointed star, made from two squares laid over each other. A two-story skybridge joins the towers at levels 41 and 42, 170 meters above the ground.

Britannica lists the towers and Merdeka 118, which has 118 floors, among the world's tallest buildings. The Kuala Lumpur Tower, a 421-meter mast for broadcasting and telecommunications, rises nearby.

The Golden Triangle, Kuala Lumpur's commercial quarter, is concentrated on the east side of the Kelang. Britannica counts three of its towers among the world's tallest buildings: the 118-story Merdeka 118 and the two 88-story Petronas Twin Towers. It also lists the 421-meter Kuala Lumpur Tower among the tallest broadcasting and telecommunications masts.

The Petronas towers were designed by the Argentine architect César Pelli. According to the towers' official site, they were first proposed at 427 m; after structural parts were recalculated and retested in wind tunnels, a dome with an integrated pinnacle was added, bringing them to 452 m, above the Sears Tower in the United States. Each floor plate is based on two interlocking squares forming an eight-pointed star, an Islamic geometric form, and the facades combine stainless steel and glass. The 750-ton double-deck skybridge, 58.4 m long, links levels 41 and 42 and is not rigidly fixed to the towers, so it can allow for small movements in strong wind.

In Kuala Lumpur, trains run high above the roads. Some trains have no driver at all!

A monorail train runs on one single rail. A fast train goes to the airport.

Kuala Lumpur's first light metro line opened on 16 December 1996. In 1998 another line opened whose trains run with no driver, and UrbanRail.net says it was then the world's longest fully automated line. In 2003 the KL Monorail began running on a single rail built 10 meters above the main roads.

The first full metro line opened in 2016 and 2017, with 9.5 kilometers of tunnels under the city center. A new driverless line serving the western parts of the metropolitan area, the Shah Alam Line, opened in June 2026. To reach Kuala Lumpur International Airport, travelers can take the KLIA Ekspres, which runs 57 kilometers in about 28 minutes without stopping.

KTM Komuter suburban trains began running on the national railway's lines in mid-1995. The first light metro, STAR, opened in stages from 16 December 1996, and the PUTRA line followed in September 1998; UrbanRail.net notes it was the world's longest fully automated driverless line until Lille's Line 2 was extended in 2000. KL Sentral station opened in April 2001, the KL Monorail on 31 August 2003, and in 2004 the lines began to be brought together under the Rapid KL brand.

The Sungai Buloh–Kajang MRT line, the city's first full metro, opened in December 2016 and July 2017, running underground for 9.5 km beneath the center in twin-bore tunnels. The Putrajaya Line was completed to Putrajaya Sentral on 16 March 2023, and the 37.8 km driverless Shah Alam Line opened on 29 June 2026. The KLIA Ekspres, running since 14 April 2002, covers the 57 km from KL Sentral to the airport at Sepang in 28 minutes non-stop.

Kuala Lumpur has an old market full of art and crafts. It has gardens with orchids, too.

Near the tall towers, a forest grows on a hill called Pineapple Hill.

Central Market was built in 1888 as a wet market, a place to buy fresh food. Today it is a center for Malaysian art and crafts. Around the old city center are areas of Chinese shop-houses, where a family runs a shop downstairs and lives upstairs.

West of the Kelang River, the Lake Gardens are a large green belt with orchid gardens, the Parliament House, the National Museum of Malaysia and the National Planetarium. The Bukit Nanas ("Pineapple Hill") Forest Reserve, a smaller natural area, lies just northwest of the Golden Triangle.

Kuala Lumpur's buildings mix Western, Middle Eastern, East Asian and local influences: glass-and-concrete towers, mosques, Malay kampungs (villages) and Chinese two-story shop-houses, family businesses with the shop on the ground floor and the home above. Central Market, built in 1888 as a wet market, is now a center for Malaysian culture, art and craft.

The Lake Gardens, a greenbelt extending west from the Kelang opposite the central city, hold orchid gardens, wildlife areas, Parliament House, the National Museum of Malaysia (1963), the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia (1999) and the National Planetarium (1993). The Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve lies just northwest of the Golden Triangle. The University of Malaya was founded in the city in 1962, and the National Sports Complex, just south of the city, was built for the 1998 Commonwealth Games.