Kuala Lumpur city (state capital), history - - Pictures
Chinese settlers founded Kuala Lumpur in 1857 as a tin-mining camp, which soon grew into a prosperous boomtown. As in other Chinese boomtowns on the Malay Peninsula, the local sultan appointed a kapitan Cina, or Chinese captain, to assume authority over the mining settlement. The first Chinese captain was Yap Ah Loy, who ruled Kuala Lumpur until Britain took over Selangor in the late 19th century. KL's strategic and economic importance made it the center of conflict during the Selangor Civil War (1867-1873), when a rift developed within Selangor's royal family over tin-mining profits. The war ended with the British takeover. Kuala Lumpur expanded under British rule as a center of tin and rubber production. In 1880 it became the capital of Selangor and in 1896 was made the capital of the British-protected Federated Malay States. Frank Swettenham, Britain's colonial administrator in Selangor, sought to turn the city into a modern colonial capital, and a construction boom ensued. Thereafter KL's growth and economic progress continued unabated. Japanese forces occupied the city from 1942 to 1945 during World War II. In 1957 KL became the capital of the newly independent Federation of Malaya, and remained the national capital when the Federation of Malaysia was founded in 1963. In 1974 the central government negotiated the cession of Kuala Lumpur from Selangor and the city became a separate federal territory.
