Seri Kembangan

History

Seri Kembangan was established as the Serdang New Village in 1952 when the British moved Malaysian Chinese villagers living around Sungai Besi to a centralised location due to the Communist threat during the Malayan Emergency as part of the Briggs Plan.

In its early days, the village had 50 houses and all were built from scratch because the British only provided empty plots of land. The area was close to rubber estates and the jungle posed dangers of a different kind. Most of the 15,000 inhabitants earned meagre incomes as mining workers and rubber tappers.

At one point, the Seri Kembangan New Village was known for cottage industries like shoe-making and type settings services but this has been overtaken by more profitable ventures.

There are now 2,500 houses with only a smattering of the original wooden houses left and the population is estimated to be 150,000, largely made up of entrepreneurs, businessmen, professionals, government servants who are working in Putrajaya and other multinational corporations employees located in Cyberjaya.

After the 1998 Commonwealth Games, more developments took place from 2000 onwards and other prominent developments includes AEON Equine Park, McDonald's, Pasar Borong Selangor (wholesale market), Maybank, Giant Hypermarket and other businesses transformed this area into a business hub.

Climate and weather

Protected by the Titiwangsa Mountains in the east and Indonesia's Sumatra Island in the west, Seri Kembangan has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen climate classification Af) which is warm and sunny, along with abundant rainfall, especially during the northeast monsoon season from October to March. Temperatures tend to remain constant. Maximums hover between 31 and 33 °C (88 and 91 °F) and have never exceeded 39.3 °C (102.7 °F), while minimums hover between 22 and 23.5 °C (71.6 and 74.3 °F) and have never fallen below 14.4 °C (57.9 °F). Seri Kembangan typically receives minimum 2,600 mm (100 in) of rain annually; June and July are relatively dry, but even then rainfall typically exceeds 133 millimetres (5.2 in) per month.

Tourism

Seri Kembangan is home to the MINES Resort City, a healthcare-oriented resort city. There used to be a theme park known as Mines Wonderland, which operated between 1997 and 2011. The development project also featured a shopping mall and the Palace of the Golden Horses, a luxury hotel.

Shopping

Seri Kembangan has three major malls: the aforementioned The Mines mall, an AEON store at Taman Equine , Giant hypermarket and the South City Plaza.

Car

Seri Kembangan is located at the intersection of three tolled highways - PLUS , Besraya and KLS . The Maju Expressway runs near the western fringe of this township. The interchange with KESAS and MRR2 lies nearby.

Consequently, Seri Kembangan is regarded as the southern gateway into Kuala Lumpur for motorists travelling from southern Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Malacca or Johor.

Public transportation

The main rail station serving Seri Kembangan is  KB05  KTM Serdang, part of the KTM Komuter network operated by state railway operator KTMB.

Alternately there is the  SP16  Sungai Besi LRT Station which is about 4 km north. Reportedly a new MRT station will be built here under the KVMRT2 project.

Education

Politics

At the national level, Seri Kembangan is part of the Serdang parliamentary constituency, currently represented by Ong Kian Ming of the DAP. Meanwhile, Seri Kembangan forms its own constituency in the Selangor State Legislative Assembly. The incumbent assemblyperson is Ean Yong Hian Wah, also from the DAP.