Città della Malesia. Malacca, George Town e Kuala Lumpur.

- Malaysian cities: Malacca, George Town, Kuala Lumpur This is an investigation inside the urban geography of Malaysia, a crossroad between the continental and insular Southeast Asia. The cities of Malacca, George Town and Kuala Lumpur, well represent the history of the country. Melaka and George Town have been included, since 2008, in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List as examples of historical and cultural intersections from the modern time to the present. The Islamic Sultanate of Malacca, during the XV century, is an interesting example of economic and cultural relations in the “Asian Mediterranean” during the pre-colonial past. Later, in 1511, the Portuguese conquered the city, because of its costal strategical location between Pacific and Indian Oceans, followed by the Dutch in 1641, who left many elements in the urban landscape. At the end of the eighteenth century, the British appear in the Malacca Straits, founding the new city of George Town, on Penang Island in the northern part. Then, they take Malacca away from the Dutch and build Singapore, in southernmost tip of the Canal. The British also chose Kuala Lumpur, village of Chinese miners in the mid-nineteenth century, as the capital, during the race to the country's natural resources of the interior. The city development, from the independence in 1957, well represent, finally, the contemporary challenges of economic and symbolic improvement of one of the "Asian tigers" emerged within the global economy, from the 1970s to the present.