Christmas Island
Minority populations More than 981 Australia 92,337 United Kingdom 63,000 | Singapore 385,979 Brunei 70,000 United States 26,179 | |
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Malaysians are the people who are identified with the country of Malaysia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Malaysians, several (frequently all) of those types of connections exist and are the source(s) of their being considered Malaysians. Although citizens make up the majority of Malaysians, non-citizen residents and overseas Malaysians may also claim a Malaysian identity.
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Map of Malaysia
The country is home to people of many different kinds of national origins and ethnicities. As a result, Malaysians do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship and allegiance. The majority of the population in Malaysian soil is made up of immigrants and their descendants. Following the initial period of Portuguese, Dutch and then the much larger British colonisation, different waves (or peaks) of immigration and settlement of non-aboriginal peoples took place over the course of nearly five centuries and continue today.
Malayan independence from Great Britain grew gradually over the course of many years since the formation of the Federation of Malaya in 1948 (excluding Crown Colony of Singapore, Crown Colony of North Borneo and Crown Colony of Sarawak). World War II in particular gave rise to a desire amongst Malayans to have their country recognised as a fully-fledged sovereign state with a distinct citizenship.
Population
As of 2010, Malaysians make up 0.4% of the world's total population, having relied upon immigration for population growth and social development. Approximately 30% of current Malaysians are first- or second-generation immigrants, and 20 percent of Malaysian residents in the 2000s were not born in Malaysian soil. It is estimated, by 2031, nearly one-half of Malaysians above the age of 15 will be foreign born or have one foreign born parent. Bumiputera, according to the 2010 Malaysian Census, numbered at 17,523,508 or 61.85% of the country's 28,334,135 population.
Ethnic groups and citizenship
Classification of 2010 Census ethnic group is as set by Inter-Agency Technical Committee (IATC) in Appendix 1. IATC is a committee formed to co-ordinate and monitor the implementation and use of standardised codes, classifications and definitions used by the Department of Statistics, Malaysia and other government agencies. For the purpose of tabulation and analysis, as well as taking into account the diverse ethnic group in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, Federal Territory of Labuan and Sarawak, major ethnic groups according to region as follows:
Information collected in the census including ethnic group and citizenship was based on respondent's answer and did not refer to any official document.
Information on citizenship should be used with caution as it is subject to content and coverage errors especially for non-citizens as in censuses in most countries.
Language
Malaysia contains speakers of 137 living languages, 41 of which are found in Peninsula Malaysia. Malaysian, or Standard Malay, is the official language, while English is considered the de facto administrative language. The Bumiputeras speak various Austronesian and Austroasiatic languages as well as smaller language families such as Tai-Kadai and Creoles. Chinese Malaysians predominantly speak varieties of Chinese from the southern provinces of China. The more common varieties in the country are Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainanese, and Fuzhou. Tamil is the predominant language among Indian Malaysians, though languages like Telugu, Malayalam and Punjabi are also widely spoken.
Religion
The Malaysian constitution guarantees freedom of religion while making Islam the state religion. According to the Population and Housing Census 2010 figures, ethnicity and religious beliefs correlate highly. Approximately 61.3% of the population practice Islam, 19.8% practice Buddhism, 9.2% Christianity, 6.3% Hinduism and 1.3% practice Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions. 0.7% declared no religion and the remaining 1.4% practised other religions or did not provide any information.