Penang

Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. The island of Penang is called Penang Island or Penang City.

Penang state is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. It is composed of two parts — Penang Island, where the seat of government is, and Seberang Perai (formerly Province Wellesley in English) on the Malay Peninsula.

Highly urbanised and industrialised Penang is one of the most developed and economically important states in the country, as well as a thriving tourist destination.[4][5][6] Penang has the third-highest Human Development Index in Malaysia, after the state of Selangor and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur. Its heterogeneous population is highly diverse in ethnicity, culture, language, and religion. A resident of Penang is colloquially known as a Penangite.

Name
The name "Penang" comes from the modern Malay name Pulau Pinang, which means "island of the areca nut palm" (Areca catechu, family Palmae). The name Penang may refer either to the island of Penang (Pulau Pinang) or the state of Penang (Negeri Pulau Pinang). In Malay, Penang's capital George Town was called and labelled in old maps as Tanjung Penaga (Cape Penaigre),[7] named after the many ballnut trees (also known as Alexandrian laurels, Calophyllum inophyllum) on the coast, but now usually shortened as Tanjung (the Cape).[8][9]

Penang is often known as "The Pearl of the Orient", "东方花园" (Garden of the East) and Pulau Pinang Pulau Mutiara (Penang, Island of Pearls). Penang is shortened as "PG" or "PP" in Malay.[10]

Early Malays called it Pulau Ka-Satu or "First (or Single) Island" because it was the largest island encountered on the trading sea-route between Lingga and Kedah.[11] The Siamese, then the overlord of the Kedah Sultanate, referred to the island as Koh Maak. (Thai: เกาะหมาก "Areca nut palm Island")[12][13] In the 15th century, the island of Penang was referred to as Bīnláng Yù (simplified Chinese: 槟榔屿; traditional Chinese: 檳榔嶼) in the navigational drawings used by Admiral Zheng He of Ming-dynasty China in his expeditions to the South Seas.[12][14] The 16th-century Portuguese historian Emanuel Godinho de Eredia's map of the Malay Peninsula in his "Description of Malaca" in 1613 referred to the island as Pulo Pinaom.[7]

Indian Summers
In Early 2014 the makers of PBS and Channel Four's period drama Indian Summers were looking around the globe for somewhere to film and they chose Penang as it was similar to the scene of India. Actress Julie Walters who plays Cynthia Coffin said on The Graham Norton Show that it was exotic in Penang and how they coped with the heat. Two places in Penang they filmed in were Woodside and Crag Hotel