Malaysia – Ethnicity

Because of Malaysia’s location on the heavily traveled Strait of Malacca, the population is a highly diverse mix, in which ethnic Malays and Chinese form the largest groups, and the most prominent of the smaller ethnic groups include the various indigenous peoples and South Asians

The people of Malaysia are unevenly distributed between Peninsula and East Malaysia, with the vast majority living in Peninsula Malaysia. The population shows great ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity. Within this diversity, a significant distinction is made for administrative purposes between indigenous peoples (including Malays), collectively called bumiputra, and immigrant populations (primarily Chinese and South Asians), called non-bumiputra.

The Malay Peninsula and the northern coast of  Borneo, both situated at the nexus of one of the major maritime trade routes of the world, have long been the meeting place of peoples from other parts of Asia. As a result, the population of Malaysia, like that of  Sout East Asia as a whole, shows great ethnographic complexity. Helping to unite this diversity of peoples is the national language, a standardized form of Malay, officially called Bahasa Malaysia (formerly Bahasa Melayu). It is spoken to some degree by most communities, and it is the main medium of instruction in public primary and secondary schools.

Extracted from www.britannica.com 2009