Travel guideHistorySightsNightlifeMap

Petaling Jaya History, Malaysia

Petaling Jaya was founded in the year 1954 as being the first planned location or town of Malaysia. Petaling Jaya has also become the busy residential and commercial hub with over 450,000 inhabitants.

Popularly called as “PJ” among the city locals, it also serves as being one of the excellent centre hubs of the Klang Valley. As the name spells ‘Jaya’, it became one of the most prosperous municipalities in the region of Selangor.

Petaling Jaya was first established by the British powers as a result of a reply to the difficulty of overpopulation faced in this place of Kuala Lumpur around the time of 1952. Since then the city has been witnessing great development and growth as far as the geographical importance and population size are concerned. The growth of this city centered on the region that is presently known as the Old Town. The very first road that was constructed in this city was simply known as “Jalan 1” but is now given the new name of Jalan Templer.

Till the year 1954, this magnificent town was managed by Petaling Jaya Town Authority However, on January 1’ 1977, this Petaling Jaya Authority was developed in order to become the Majlis Perbandaran Petaling Jaya or simply the Petaling Jaya Municipal Council. The town of Petaling Jaya developed rapidly as a result of the large number of urban and rural migration. As more and more people emigrated from the rural regions, the Subang districts and Sungai Way districts with some new regions like Seksyen 52 and Subang Jaya developed in the areas under the municipality jurisdiction. Eventually in the year 1997, some parts of the town like Sunway, Subang Jaya, USJ and Puchong were located under the newly formed jurisdiction of MPSJ or the Municipal Council.

In June, 2006, this town was given a great city status along with the Dato' Ahmad Termizi Puteh became the very first mayor of the city. The local authority of Petaling Jaya changed its popularity as Majlis Bandaraya Petaling Jaya following the surrendering of the city status.

email to a friendAsk our travel experts a question about Petaling Jaya