Melaka and George Town have developed over 500 years of trading and cultural exchanges between East and West in the Straits of Malacca.
The influences of Asia and Europe have endowed these towns with a specific multicultural heritage; of government buildings, churches, squares and fortifications. Melaka demonstrates the early stages of this history originating in the 15th-century Malay sultanate and the Portuguese and Dutch periods beginning in the early 16th century while the residential and commercial buildings of George Town represents the British era from the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 20th century.
Together they constitute a unique architectural townscape without parallel anywhere in East and Southeast Asia and have been recognised as the World Heritage listed, ‘Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca.’