Wondering What District You Live In? Checking Here Might Surprise (And Confuse) You

Malaysia’s districts make no sense, really.

Screenshot of the National Geospatial Centre portal

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You may or may not be certain of what district you live in but if you live within a kilometre of the Kuala Lumpur/Selangor border then you might be in for a surprise.

I sure was when I used the search tool on the portal that was set up by the National Geospatial Centre as a reference for other government agencies.

If you open up the portal, the search tool is the one it the most top right hand corner of the window.

You see, our address according to the electricity bill is the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and our postcode is listed as being under Kuala Lumpur.

Even when we went to a nearby bank recently, they said our address is a Kuala Lumpur address and my wife has also always been certain that we are in Kuala Lumpur which should confirm it without any further questions.

However, I always had my doubts because Google Maps says we’re in Selangor.

Looks like Google Maps was right as confirmed by the National Geospatial Centre, which sits under the Water, Land and Natural Resources Ministry.

The Water, Land and Natural Resources Ministry claims it’s in Putrajaya.

To be more precise, my wife and I live in Ampang which is in the Gombak district, even though Ampang itself is about 5 minutes drive away and Gombak is 20 minutes away.

Why this is and how it makes any sense, I have no idea, but go ahead and check your address for yourself using the search box in the top right-hand corner of the portal.

I gave up trying to make sense of this when I saw that there are at least 3 Mukim Ampang that don’t touch and then I checked what “mukim” means and DBP says it’s a synonym of daerah, kawasan, wilayah, zon, provisi, bahagian, rantau, kampung, desa, lingkungan, kelurahan, mandala, and luak.

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districts Kuala Lumpur Malaysia maps Selangor

Hamzah Nazari

TRP's Head of Editorial, Hamzah was formerly a hard-news journalist who reported on politics, did investigative work, and occasionally went undercover. He now spends his days sitting at a desk, checking grammar and fielding calls from PR companies, which is totally fine and fulfilling. For sure. He's also married with kids now so his wife and mother said he can't do risky things anymore.