Melaka as a cultural entrepot

Abstract

Observations on the growth of Malacca as a Malay empire point to the fundamental process of inter antions between factors of strategic geographical location, international rivalries between major local powers, focal trading routes and the internal resilience of the Malay culture. Within the short spell of about half a century Malacca grew up to become a powerful Malay empire which was able to gulvanize the entire Malay ethnic subgroups in the Peninsular, Sumatra, Kalimantan and the Javanese archipelago to become what might be regarded as a definitive Malay ethnic group.