Malaya

Malaya's Malay sultanates included Malacca, founded around 1400 by Parameswara on the peninsula's west coast. In the fifteenth century Malacca became a major trading port, ruling much of the peninsula and spreading Islam and Malay literary culture.

The Portuguese captured Malacca in 1511, and Sultan Mahmud Shah withdrew south. His son Alauddin Riayat Shah II founded Johor in 1528; Johor fought both Portuguese Malacca and Aceh before joining the Dutch in the capture of Malacca in 1641.