page_title: Langkawi
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Langkawi / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Mao Kun map showing the island of Langkawi (龍牙交椅), Kedah river estuary (吉達港), Penang island (梹榔嶼) and Pulau Sembilan (九州)
context_page_description: Langkawi, officially known as Langkawi, the Jewel of Kedah, is a district and an archipelago of 99 islands in the Andaman Sea some 30 km off the mainland coast of northwestern Malaysia. The islands are a part of the state of Kedah, which is adjacent to the Thai border. On 15 July 2008, Sultan Abdul Halim of Kedah consented to the change of name to Langkawi Permata Kedah in conjunction with his golden jubilee celebration. By far the largest of the islands is the eponymous Langkawi Island, with a population of some 64,792; the only other inhabited island being nearby Tuba Island.
  Langkawi is also an administrative district, with the town of Kuah as its largest town. Pentai Cenang is the most popular beach and tourist area in Langkawi, with tens of thousands of visitors each year.
  Langkawi is a duty-free island.
context_section_description: Langkawi had long been at the periphery of, but closely associated with, the domain of the Kedah Sultanate. Legend tells of a great snake ular besar,  the custodian of the Langkawi Islands, to which a new king of Kedah must sacrifice a virgin daughter whenever he first ascended the throne, or when a war was declared with another state.
  The island of Langkawi was recorded in history by various travelers to the region.  It was called Lóngyápútí (龍牙菩提) in the 14th century by the Yuan dynasty traveler Wang Dayuan, and when the Ming dynasty admiral Zheng He visited the region, the island was marked as 龍牙交椅, Lóngyájiāoyǐ, in his map. In the 15th century, it was known to the Acehnese as Pulau Lada "Pepper Island" as they came over to plant pepper. In 1691, the French general Augustin de Beaulieu recorded going to the island of "Lancahui" (Langkawi) to buy pepper, and de Beaulieu was required to obtain a license from Kedah's heir apparent then in Perlis before the penghulu or chief of Langkawi would sell pepper to him.
  Langkawi was historically home to seafarers, such as the orang laut or sea people originally from the southern part of the Malay Peninsula, as well as pirates and fishermen.  It had been thought to be cursed for a couple of centuries - according to local legend, in the late 18th century, a woman named Mahsuri was wrongfully accused of adultery and put to death, and she placed a curse on the island that would last for seven generations. Not long after Mahsuri's death, in 1821, the Siamese army invaded Kedah, and attacked Langkawi.  In the first attack, the locals decided to burn down the granary at Padang Matsirat to starve and drive out the Siamese army. The Siamese nevertheless finally captured the island in May 1822, killed its leaders, and many of the islanders were taken as slaves, while others were forced to flee. Before the Siamese invasion, there was an estimated island population of 3–5000, and only a small proportion was left after the invasion.
  The island was recaptured from Siamese rule in a campaign against the Siamese in 1837.  In 1840–1841, the Sultan of Kedah, who went into exile after the Siamese attacks, was allowed to return by the Siamese, and the population of Langkawi islands recovered afterwards mainly due to settlement of immigrants from Sumatra.  However, the Orang Laut who fled after the Siamese attacks did not return.  In 1909, the islands came under British rule under the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909.  The middle of the channel between Tarutao National Park and Langkawi would become the Siamese border, and Tarutao would be part of Siam while all the Langkawi islands to the south would come under British rule. During the World War II, Siam took control briefly as British Malaya fell to the Japanese.
  Langkawi had been a haven for pirates which affected the northern part of the Strait of Malacca. In a series of operations, between December 1945 and March 1946, the British cleared the pirates' land base in Langkawi and Tarutao.  The British continued to rule until Malaya gained its independence in 1957.
  Langkawi remained as a quiet backwater until 1986, when the then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad decided to transform it into a major tourist resort, helping to plan many of the islands buildings himself. The curse placed by Mahsuri for seven generations was said to have lifted as the 7th generation descendant of Mahsuri who now lives in Phuket Province was born. The island rapidly grew as a tourist destination, and by 2012, it had received over 3 million tourists a year.
caption: The Mao Kun map from Wubei Zhi – derived from the 15th-century navigation maps of Zheng He – shows Langkawi (龍牙交椅) next to Penang Island (檳榔嶼)
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