George Town, Penang

George Town Tanjung
Motto:  "Leading We Serve"
Country	Malaysia
State	Penang
Founded	1786
Municipality established	1857
Granted city status	1957 (merged in 1974)
Area
• City	estimated 150 km2 (58.59 sq mi)
Elevation	4 m (13.1 ft)
Population  (2006)
• City	300,000(33rd)
• Density	1,447/km2 (3,748/sq mi)
• Metro	1,225,501
	(metro pop is a 2000 est)
Time zone	UTC+8 (MST)
• Summer (DST)	Not observed

05°25′N 100°19′E George Town is the capital city of the state of Penang in Malaysia. Named after Britain's King George III, the city is located on the north-east corner of Penang Island and has about 220,000 inhabitants, or about 400,000 including the suburbs.

George Town was founded in 1786 by Captain Francis Light, a trader for the British East India Company, as base for the company in the Malay States. He obtained the island of Penang from the Sultan of Kedah and built Fort Cornwallis on the north-eastern corner of the island. The fort became the nexus of a growing trading post and the island's population reached 12,000 by 1804.

George Town is known as Tanjung in Malay and 喬治市 (Qiáozhì Shì) in Chinese. It was voted as one of the best cities in Asia by Asiaweek, ranked 6th in 1998 and 9th in 2000. More recently in 2007, it was ranked as the 10th most liveable city in Asia according to an international survey involving 254 cities worldwide by Employment Conditions Abroad Limited (ECA International). Back in 2002, it was placed 12th. A city is judged based on its weather, air quality, infrastructure, health services, housing, security and politics.

Due to strict rent controls, George Town retains many colonial-era shophouses to this day and is often considered an architectural gem. Most of George Town's population is of Chinese origin.

Since the repeal of the rent controls in 2000, many pre-war buildings have given way to new high rises. Heritage guidelines are still in its infancy and much needs to be done to conserve such treasures for the benefit of future generations.

The historic commercial centre

Beach Street, George Town, Penang

View onto Beach Street

George Town was built on swampy land that had to be cleared of vegetation, levelled and filled. The original commercial town was laid out between Light Street, Beach Street (then running close to the seashore), Malabar Street (subsequently called Chulia Street) and Pitt Street (now called Masjid Kapitan Keling Street).

The warehouses and godowns extended from Beach Street to the sea. By the 1880’s, there were ghauts leading from Beach Street to the wharf and jetties as Beach Street receded inland due to land reclamation. A new waterfront was created at Weld Quay, where commercial buildings sprang up.

The historic commercial centre was segmented into the banking and trading areas related to port activities which included shipping companies, the import and export trade, and the wholesalers who dominate the southern section of Beach Street until now.

The hub of George Town’s waterfront commercial and financial district

At the turn of the 19th century, the northern section of Beach Street and the adjacent Bishop Street were the ‘high street’ where the ‘modern’ European emporium and stores selling imported merchandise were situated.

Among the early foreign companies that located their offices on Beach Street were the Netherlands Trading Society, the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), the Chartered Bank, Boustead & Co., Guthne & Co., Caldbeck & Macgregor, Behn Meyer, Sandilands & Buttery, G.H. Slot and the stores of Pritchard & Co., Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co., and others. Among the local businesses that were established here during this period were H.M. Nooradin, Tiang Lee & Co., Guan Lee Hin Steamship, Tye Sin Tat, Pinang Sales Room, Koe Guan and others. Penang’s first petroleum lamps were installed on this section of Beach Street by Huttenbach & Co..

Local Government

The old city hall housing the Municipal Council

The Municipal Council of George Town was established in 1857, the first local authority in Malaya. Three out of five municipal commissioners were elected by a limited franchise, but due to apathy these elections were abolished in 1913.

In 1951, as part of the move towards independence for Malaya, the British colonial authorities reintroduced local elections of nine of the fifteen municipal commissioners for George Town. Other municipal councils in Malaya followed shortly thereafter, with Kuala Lumpur holding its first local elections the year after. By 1956, George Town had become the first municipality in Malaya to have a fully-elected council, with Cllr G. H. Goh (Alliance) as its first President.

On 1 January 1957, George Town became a city by a royal charter granted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, becoming the first town in the Federation of Malaya to become a city (Singapore became a city in 1951). The first Mayor of George Town was Cllr D. S. Ramanathan (Labour). George Town was the only city in Malaya/Malaysia until Kuala Lumpur was granted city status in 1972. To this day, the Royal Charter is still prominently displayed in the Penang State Museum.

In 1965, the federal Government suspended local elections as a result of the Indonesian Confrontation. A Royal Commission in 1968 recommended the restoration of local democracy, but this was never carried out.

In 1974, the City Council of George Town was merged with the Rural District Council of Penang to form the Municipal Council of Penang Island. The Local Government Act 1976 finally abolished local elections throughout Malaysia, providing for municipal councillors to be appointed by the state government.

City status

Fort Cornwallis, first british settlement on Penang

Buddhist Kek Lok Si Tempel

Islamic Museum on Armenian Street

Jewish Cemetery on Jalan Zainal Abidin (former Jahudi Road)

The colonial Eastern & Oriental Hotel

George Town's royal charter provided that:

"the said Municipality of George Town shall on the First Day of January in the Year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifty seven and forever thereafter be a city and shall be called and styled the CITY OF GEORGE TOWN instead of the Municipality of George Town and shall thenceforth have all such rank, liberties, privileges and immunities as are incident to a city."

In addition, several federal ordinances and acts refer to the City of George Town, such as the City of George Town Ordinance 1957. According to Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) trustee, Datuk Anwar Fazal, a lawyer by profession, George Town "legally has been and is still a city [because] the City of George Town Ordinance 1957 had not been repealed" ("Penang Forgetting Its History", The Star, January 1, 2007).

However, since the City Council of George Town was merged with the Penang Rural District Council in 1974, it is not clear if George Town continues to exist as a legal entity, let alone as a city. Rochester in England, the site of England's second-oldest cathedral, which had been recognised as a city from the year 1211, lost its city status in 1998 when it was merged with a neighbouring borough. As the new council was not granted city status, and the city through oversight failed to appoint charter trustees to inherit the city charter, the city ceased to exist. In the view of the federal and state governments, George Town has similarly lost its city status.

Whether George Town is a city is a matter of law, and will depend on the legal instrument by which the merger was effected: was the municipality that was established in 1857 abolished in 1974, or did was it merely expanded to include the area formerly governed by the Rural District Council? Alternatively, if the Municipality of Penang Island is a new entity, did it inherit the "rank, liberties, privileges and immunities" of the old City of George Town? It is also not clear what effect the Local Government Act 1976 may have had on the previous charter and ordinances.

The issue of city status has lain dormant since 1974, but in recent years local resentment has grown as relatively insignificant towns such as Alor Star have been designated cities. Several years ago the Penang state government announced its intention to petition the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) of Malaysia for a regrant/reconfirmation of city status once the city's new boundaries were agreed, but there has not been any progress on this front. The only other way to establish whether or not George Town remains a city would be an application to the High Court of Malaya for a declaration that George Town continues to be a city in law.

On January 1, 2007, no special event was held to celebrate the golden jubilee of George Town's city status and the 150th anniversary of the state's municipal status, prompting Datuk Anwar Fazal to slam the state government and calling it a "missed opportunity". He recalled "there was a three-day celebration on January 1, 1957, to mark the 100th anniversary of the municipality and its elevation to a city. It was a remarkable event, with some 5,000 dignitaries, including the Malay rulers attending. There were chingay demonstrations, a decorated vehicle procession, wayang kulit displays and cross-channel swimming matches" ("Penang Forgetting Its History", The Star, January 1, 2007).

Future development

View from close to the Gurney Drive

Main article: Penang Monorail

On 2 August 2006, the federal government announced a plan to build a monorail transit system connecting George Town to Tanjung Tokong in the north and Bayan Lepas in the south.

Sister cities

• Adelaide, Australia (1973)
• Medan, Indonesia
• Xiamen, China (1991)
• Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

See also

• Cities of Malaysia
• Architecture of Penang
• City Hall, Penang

Literature

• Khoo Salma Nasution. More Than Merchants: A History of the German-speaking Community in Penang, 1800s-1940s. Areca Books. (2006). ISBN 978-9834283414

External links

Media related to George Town, Penang at Wikimedia Commons

• Template:Wikitravel
• Article about Georgetown
• Trails of Georgetown
• Georgetown photo gallery