Malaysia Geography & Climate

Malaysia occupies two landmasses. Peninsular Malaysia hangs south from Thailand, with a mountainous spine — the Titiwangsa range — dividing a developed, industrial west coast on the Strait of Malacca from a quieter east coast on the South China Sea.

Sabah and Sarawak occupy the northern third of Borneo, the third largest island in the world. Their rainforest is among the oldest on earth at roughly 130 million years, considerably older than the Amazon.

Mount Kinabalu in Sabah reaches 4,095 metres and is still rising. Gunung Mulu in Sarawak holds Sarawak Chamber, the largest known cave chamber by area anywhere.

The Strait of Malacca on the west coast has been one of the world's most important shipping lanes for six centuries, and is the reason Melaka and Penang exist in the form they do.

Malaysia sits within a few degrees of the equator, so temperature barely varies: 30-33°C by day and around 23°C at night, everywhere, all year. There is no cool season.

What changes is rainfall. The northeast monsoon (November-February) hits the east coast of the peninsula and western Borneo hardest, closing east-coast island resorts entirely. The southwest monsoon (May-September) brings wetter conditions to the west coast.

Rain is usually a heavy late-afternoon downpour of an hour or two rather than all day, and it does not generally prevent travel.

The Cameron Highlands and Kinabalu are the exceptions on temperature — genuinely cool, and cold at altitude on the mountain.