Article

Klang

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Klang

Klang is a river and settlement on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula whose historical significance spans from the Bronze Age to the modern era. Its excellent harbour and strategic position for receiving trade carried by the north-east and south-west monsoons made it a place of importance from very early days, and its tin-producing rivers sustained economic activity for centuries [1, pp. 81–83]. The name itself has been the subject of considerable scholarly debate, with Linehan (1951) arguing convincingly that it derives not from the Malay word for tin but from a Mon-Khmer term meaning “store-house” or “citadel” [1, p. 85]. Klang’s political history is inseparable from that of Selangor, of which it formed a constituent part, and its archaeological record, though sparse, provides some of the earliest material evidence of organised society in the region [2, p. 1].

Archaeological and Prehistoric Evidence

The material remains of pre-Bugis civilisation in the Klang region are meagre but significant. Winstedt (1934) catalogues the only known relics as a few neoliths, three socketted iron tools of the “ape’s bones” type from Batang Berjuntai, and a bronze bell from Klang, all held in the museums of Kuala Lumpur, Taiping, and Singapore [2, p. 1]. Linehan (1951) adds to this inventory a ceremonial drum and three elephant bells discovered at Klang, which he interprets as the insignia of a king or chief [1, p. 81]. Drawing on the History of the Liang Dynasty, which records that the king of Lang-ya-hsiu rode on an elephant surrounded by flags, banners, and drums, Linehan argues that drums and elephants formed part of royal paraphernalia at least by the sixth century A.D., lending weight to the interpretation that the Klang objects belonged to a sovereign or high-ranking chief [1, p. 81].

The T’ang cartographer Chia Tan, whose work was compiled between 785 and 805 A.D., mentions a place called Ko-lo, which P. Pelliot (1912) placed “roughly between Malacca and Kedah” on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula [1, p. 81]. Linehan considers it not at all unlikely that Ko-lo described the Klang region as it existed in the seventh to ninth centuries, a period for which Coedes noted that Chinese sources were very poor in information about the Malay Peninsula [1, p. 81]. The possibility that Klang was one of the places in the Golden Chersonese mentioned by Ptolemy is discussed by Linehan in a separate paper [1, p. 81].

Political History and Etymology

The earliest textual reference to Klang in a Javanese source appears in the Nagarakretagama, composed in 1365 A.D., where it is listed under the name Kelang as a dependency of Majapahit, positioned between Tumasik (ancient Singapore) and Keda (Kedah) [1, p. 82]. The absence of any mention of Johore, Selangor, or Perak in this poem suggests that the author was unaware of states so named [1, p. 82]. In the Malay Annals, the state conquered by the Indian king Raja Shulan in the eleventh century is called Glang Gui (also rendered Lenggui or Klenggiu), described as “a great country with a fort (kota) of black rock (batu hitam)” whose name originally meant “treasure-house of jewels” (perbendaharaan permata) [1, pp. 81–82]. Linehan identifies this state with Klang on the grounds of comparative proximity to the Dindings region (which the Annals place immediately before Glang Gui in the sequence of conquest), the phonetic affinity between the names, and the established importance of the Klang region in earlier periods [1, p. 82]. He further suggests that the “black stone fort” may have been the Batu Caves (Goa Batu) of Selangor, approach to which was by the Klang river, noting that caves are not unknown as kota (fort or citadel), as in the case of Kota Gelanggi in Pahang [1, p. 82].

The name Selangor first appears in the Malay Annals during the reign of Mahmud, the last Sultan of Malacca before the Portuguese conquest of 1511, implying that the state as such was unknown before that period [1, p. 83]. By the end of Mahmud’s reign, the name Klang had evidently become restricted to designate merely the area of the Klang river, while Selangor came more into prominence for the region of the Selangor river, though it was still far from comprising the area now included in the State of Selangor [1, p. 83].

The etymology of the name has been a persistent source of confusion. Tomé Pires, in the Suma Oriental (written 1512–1515), records the Klang river area as Clam and the Selangor river area as Calangor or Calamgor, both paying annual tribute to the Sultan of Malacca in calains (tin ingots) [1, pp. 83–84]. Pires mistakenly derived both names from the Malay word kalian (diggings, mine-workings), and this erroneous derivation was perpetuated by later writers including T. J. Newbold (1839), who called the place Kalong or Calang and described it as “a Malay word for tin” [1, pp. 84–85]. Linehan rejects this derivation, arguing that the bronze-age culture of Klang was derived from Khmer-speaking Funan and that the name should be sought in an Indo-Chinese word [1, p. 85]. He points to the Cham-French dictionary of Aymonier and Cabaton, which gives klo’ng (store-house, market, public place where the king received tribute) and galang or galo’ng (connected to the Khmer khlang, meaning royal store-house, public store-house, citadel) [1, p. 85]. The Malay Annals’ gloss of Glang Gui as perbendaharaan permata (“treasure-house of jewels”) accords well with these Cham meanings, and Linehan concludes that the name Klang most likely derives from one of these Mon-Khmer terms [1, p. 85].

Economic and Colonial History

Tin mining at Klang was already significant by 1613, when d’Eredia recorded an annual output exceeding one hundred bares from the area [2, pp. 1–2]. The Bugis migration from the house of Luwu in South Celebes transformed Selangor from a collection of minor river states into a strategic military base, with Klang serving as a key node in this transformation [2, pp. 3–6]. The five sons of Upu Tenribong Daing Rilaka—Daing Parani, Daing Menambun, Daing Merewah, Daing Chela’, and Daing Kamase—were the principal agents of this change, and Selangor served as a staging ground for Bugis campaigns against Raja Kechil of Siak in Kedah and in Perak throughout the first half of the eighteenth century [2, pp. 3–6].

The period from 1800 to 1857 saw Sultan Ibrahim project Selangor’s power into Perak (conquered in 1804) and into the diplomatic rivalry between the Dutch at Malacca and the British at Penang [2, pp. 11–15]. The 1825 treaty, brokered by Governor Fullerton, fixed the Bernam river as the boundary between Selangor and Perak and marked the first occasion on which the British acquired a legal right to prevent Siamese armaments from reaching the state [2, pp. 11–15]. Under Sultan Muhammad (r. 1830–1857), the state decayed under the extortions of the Sultan’s numerous offspring, and the 1834 massacre of Chinese miners at Lukut presaged the administrative breakdown that large-scale Chinese immigration would produce [2, pp. 16–17].

The civil war of 1866–1874 was triggered by the death of Sultan Muhammad without a settled succession. Raja Mahdi, a Bugis chief at Klang, defeated the Sultan’s brother-in-law Raja ‘Abdu’llah in 1866, but the real contest was between Mahdi and Tengku Zia’u’d-din (Kudin), the Kedah-born Viceroy appointed by Sultan ‘Abdu’l-Samad in 1868 [2, pp. 28–29]. The war reached its nadir in the Petaling ambush of 1872, where two European officers and 56 sepoys were killed, and the forts at Kuala Selangor fell to Sayid Mashhor [2, pp. 28–29]. The Viceroy’s eventual victory, secured with Pahang forces under Wan Ahmad, was consolidated by the British appointment of J. G. Davidson as first Resident in 1874, a move precipitated by the murder of Malacca subjects by pirates under Raja Ya’akob and the Viceroy’s own application for a British officer [2, pp. 30–32].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on Klang reveals a progression from archaeological and linguistic inquiry to political and administrative history. Linehan’s 1951 article on the historical notes of Klang represents a synthesis of Chinese dynastic histories, the Nagarakretagama, the Suma Oriental, the Malay Annals (both the Raffles No. 18 and Shellabear texts), Cham-French dictionaries, and nineteenth-century British travel literature [1, pp. 81–85]. His work builds directly on Braddell’s 1950 article on Ko-lo in the same journal and on his own earlier study of Pahang (1936), indicating a sustained research interest in the toponymy and early political geography of the Malay Peninsula [1, p. 85, fn. 3]. The etymological argument—that Klang derives from a Mon-Khmer word rather than from the Malay word for tin—corrects a persistent error introduced by Pires and perpetuated by Newbold and others [1, pp. 83–85].

Winstedt’s 1934 A History of Selangor, published serially in the Society’s journal, provides the broader political context within which Klang’s history must be understood. Writing as Assistant Director of the Malay and Singapore Museums and later Director of Education in the Straits Settlements, Winstedt had direct access to the archaeological specimens and archival correspondence (Dutch Dagh-Register, Penang state papers, Misa Melayu, Tuhfat al-Nafis) that underpin his narrative [2, pp. 1–32]. His overarching thesis—that Selangor’s modern statehood emerged from the intersection of Bugis military enterprise, Chinese commercial immigration, and British imperial intervention—frames Klang’s role as both a tin-producing centre and a Bugis military stronghold [2, pp. 3–6]. The two articles, though separated by seventeen years, are complementary: Linehan addresses the deep history and linguistic identity of the Klang region, while Winstedt traces its political development through the colonial period. Together they establish Klang as a site of particular importance for understanding the early political geography, economic history, and cultural contacts of the west coast of the Malay Peninsula.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. W. Linehan (1951). Historical notes, mainly about Klang JMBRAS 24(3): 81–85.
  2. W. Linehan (1951). Traces of a Bronze Age culture associated with Iron Age implements in the region of Klang and the Tembeling, Malaya JMBRAS 24(3): 1–59.