Sultanate of Perak

The Sultanate of Perak is one of the oldest hereditary Malay monarchies, founded in the 1520s after the fall of Malacca to Portugal in 1511. Muzaffar Shah, a son of the last Malacca sultan Mahmud Shah, was invited by the chiefs of Perak to rule, and his line has continued to the present. The sultanate controlled the rich tin-bearing valleys of the Perak river, and its position on the western side of the peninsula made it a meeting point for Malay, Acehnese, Bugis and Minangkabau influence. In the 17th and 18th centuries Perak was repeatedly drawn into the wars between Johor, Aceh and the Dutch, and its tin trade attracted Dutch and later British interest. The Pangkor Treaty of 1874, imposed after a succession dispute and local conflict, installed a British resident and is conventionally taken as the beginning of British indirect rule in the Malay states. Perak became part of the Federated Malay States in 1895 and of independent Malaysia in 1957. Kuala Kangsar, the royal town, preserves the palace and the Ubudiah Mosque, while the sultanate's regalia and succession customs remain distinctive.