City in Johor, Malaysia
Iskandar Puteri
(formerly known as
Nusajaya
) is a
city
and the
administrative capital
of the state of
Johor
,
Malaysia
. It hosts
Kota Iskandar
, which represents the
seat of government
of the state of Johor (
Executive branch
&
Legislative branch
).
[3]
[4]
Situated along the
Straits of Johor
at the southern end of the
Malay Peninsula
, it is also the southernmost city in
Peninsular Malaysia
.
Together with the adjacent cities of
Johor Bahru
(the official state capital of Johor) and
Pasir Gudang
, it is located within the
Johor Bahru District
. They anchor Malaysia's third largest
urban
agglomeration,
Iskandar Malaysia
, with a population of 2.2 million (As of August 2020
[update]
).
[5]
History
[
edit
]
Sempit Puteri
[
edit
]
Historically, the area surrounding present-day Iskandar Puteri consisted mostly of fishing villages, populated by
Malays
and
Orang Laut
tribes. Located on the western side of the
Tebrau Strait
, the area was once known as
Sempit Puteri
(narrow princess) as it was facing the narrowest point of the Tebrau Straits.
In 1855, when
Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim
won his claim over the
Johor
throne, he relocated the capital city of the now-divided kingdom from
Telok Blangah
(
Singapore
) to Tanjung Puteri and renamed it Iskandar Puteri.
[6]
The name, however, proved to be short-lived when his son
Maharaja Abu Bakar
, the first Sultan of Modern Johor, renamed Tanjung Puteri as
Johor Bahru
upon his coronation as the Maharaja of Johor in 1868 to distinguish his dynasty from the old
Sultanate of Johor
.
[7]
During Maharaja Abu Bakar's reign,
Jaafar Muhammad
was appointed as the first
Menteri Besar of Johor
. According to a story from Yayasan Warisan Johor, during his journey to Sempit Puteri, the paddle of the
sampan
that Dato Jaafar was boarding broke. That event gave the place its new name
Gelang Patah
(broken paddle).
As many as eight local councils (
majlis tempatan
) were set up in the 1950s and 1960s to oversee municipal works in the area.
[8]
The smaller local councils were merged in March 1978 and replaced by the Central Johor Bahru District Council (
Majlis Daerah Johor Bahru Tengah
, MDJBT), as the local authority in
Johor Bahru
's western and northern suburban areas, while
Johor Bahru City Council
(MBJB) administers downtown
Johor Bahru
. MDJBT was granted municipal status in 2001.
Nusajaya
[
edit
]
In 1993, during the leadership of the fourth Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad
, a plan for a second bridge connecting the
Peninsular Malaysia
and
Singapore
was brought forward by
Halim Saad
, who at the time was known as a successful young entrepreneur who built the
Malaysia
longest highway,
North-South Expressway
, and apprentice to the former Minister of Finance
Daim Zainuddin
. The cabinet approved the project as the traffic at the then
Johor Causeway
was already over-congested. The new bridge had been connected from the NSE via Second Link to
Jurong East
of
Singapore
. His past experience enabled Halim to secure financing from Bank for Renong Berhad (now
UEM Group
) to acquire vast land along with the Second Link for his ambitious new township which later known as Nusajaya. The Nusajaya name was given by former
Menteri Besar of Johor
,
Muhyiddin Yassin
.
UEM Group through its subsidiary UEM Land (now UEM Sunrise) continue to develop Nusajaya as the new city centre of Johor. A new administrative centre,
Kota Iskandar
was developed by
Cahaya Jauhar
in Nusajaya based on the Federal Government administrative centre at
Putrajaya
as a catalyst to Nusajaya development. This is followed by the introduction of
Iskandar Malaysia
,
Iskandar Regional Development Authority
and Iskandar Investment Board to regulate and promote the development growth in Nusajaya. In 2008, the Johor State Parliament was moved from
Sultan Ibrahim Building
in Johor Bahru to
Sultan Ismail Building
in Kota Iskandar. Several other catalyst developments were later added to Nusajaya. Among them are
Legoland Malaysia Resort
, Puteri Harbour and Pinewood Malaysia Studio (now, Iskandar Malaysia Studio) and Southern Industrial And Logistics Clusters (SiLC). A new city,
Medini
was also developed as the capital for Nusajaya. UEM also sold part of Nusajaya land to other developers including
Syed Mokhtar Albukhary
's Tradewind,
SP Setia
(Bukit Indah & Setia Eco Garden), Ecoworld (Eco Botanic), and
Sunway Group
(Sunway Iskandar) to expedite the development of Nusajaya.
Iskandar Puteri
[
edit
]
In January 2016, Nusajaya was renamed to its former name, Iskandar Puteri by
Sultan Ibrahim
, current
Sultan of Johor
. Johor Bahru Tengah Municipal Council was upgraded to
Iskandar Puteri City Council
on 22 November 2017.
[1]
[
citation needed
]
Government
[
edit
]
Locations of Iskandar Puteri and its suburbs
Iskandar Puteri is Johor's second city, and Malaysia's 14th.
[9]
It administered by the
Iskandar Puteri City Council
. It houses
Kota Iskandar
, the administrative centre for the government of Johor State, which houses the
Johor State Legislative Assembly
and Johor Chief Minister's Office. Mahkota Square is also located here.
[10]
Due to electoral division by
Election Commission of Malaysia
, there are four parliamentary and eight state constituencies (DUN) dividing the Iskandar Puteri area. There are (P161)
Pulai
parliamentary seat, (N46) and (P162)
Iskandar Puteri
parliamentary seat. Eight state seats are
Perling
state seat;(N48)
Skudai
state seat and (N49)
Kota Iskandar
state seat along with partial
Kulai
(
Bukit Batu
for
Ulu Choh
and
Senai
for UTM) and
Tebrau
(
Puteri Wangsa
for Maju Jaya).
Administrative divisions
[
edit
]
Iskandar Puteri consists of 11 administrative zones:
[11]
Demographics
[
edit
]
Iskander Puteri is the second largest city in Johor. As of 2020, the municipal area of Iskandar Puteri has a population of 447697.
[13]
It ranks as the seventh most
populous urban centre
in Malaysia (2020).
[13]
The following is based on Department of Statistics Malaysia 2020 census.
[13]
Education
[
edit
]
EduCity
is a 600-acre (2.4 km
2
) educational area, which consists of the
University of Southampton Malaysia Campus
,
Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia
,
University of Reading
,
Multimedia University
,
Raffles University
,
Netherlands Maritime Institute of Technology
,
Management Development Institute of Singapore
, Stellar International School,
Marlborough College Malaysia
and Raffles American School.
[14]
Other universities in the city are
University of Technology, Malaysia
and
Southern University College
.
Medical
[
edit
]
Afiat Healthpark was initially developed as the medical hub for Iskandar Puteri. Columbia Asia Iskandar Puteri was the first hospital to be built in the city. This was followed by Gleneagles Medini and Kensington Specialist Centre.
[15]
Industry
[
edit
]
Concurrent with the development of Iskandar Puteri, a new proposal was brought forward by the then State Secretary, Dato Ayob Mion, to build a new port at the west coast of Johor. The new port,
Port of Tanjung Pelepas
was developed near the Second Link and become the catalyst for industrial development at the Tanjung Kupang area in the west of Iskandar Puteri.
Later, UEM also developed Southern Industry and Logistic Cluster (SiLC) which hosts i-Park SiLC, IBP, Bio-excell and iTech Valley. SILC also hosts the largest insulin producer in the world, Biocon and Insulet. This is followed by Nusa Cemerlang and Nusajaya Techpark at the adjacent land at Gelang Patah.
Tourist attractions
[
edit
]
Puteri Harbour (with a land area of 278 hectares or 688 arces) & Forest City is a
marina
development that spans 687 acres (2.8 km
2
) on the
Straits of Johor
. Sanrio Hello Kitty Town and Thomas Town were also located at Puteri Harbour.
[16]
Legoland Malaysia
is a 5,500,000 sq ft (510,000 m
2
) integrated complex containing the
Legoland Malaysia
and Legoland Water Park theme parks, plus a lifestyle retail centre, offices, hotels, service apartments and residential units. The main theme park includes 70 hands-on rides, slides, shows distributed among the LEGO Technic, LEGO Kingdoms, Imagination, Land of Adventure, Lego City and Minliand areas. Another attraction is the Legoland Hotel.
[17]
Shopping malls in the city are Paradigm Mall JB, B5 Johor Street Market,
ÆON Bukit Indah
, AEON Taman Universiti, GP Mall, Mall of Medini, Perling Mall, Sunway Big Box, Sutera Mall, Tasek Central and many more.
FASTrack City will open in 2019.
[18]
In March 2019, works on a new marina in Puteri Harbour kicked off, as a joint venture between SUTL Enterprise and UEM Sunrise.
[19]
[20]
The first phase of the ONE°15 Marina Puteri Harbour
[21]
membership was launched in November 2020, with the opening of ONE°15 Estuari Sports Centre.
[22]
[23]
Johor Tourism, Youth and Sports Committee chairman, Datuk Onn Hafiz Bin Ghazi was the guest of honour at the opening launch. The integrated sports complex was launched with the intent to introduce a world-class sporting venue in Johor with the potential to host national and international sporting events.
[24]
[25]
Iskandar Puteri residences
[
edit
]
Townships such as
Nusa Bayu
,
Gerbang Nusajaya
, Setia Eco Gardens, Casa Almyra, Nusa Sentral, Taman Universiti, Nusa Indah, Taman Nusa Bestari Jaya, Bestari Heights,
East Ledang
, Estuari, Ledang Heights, Nusa Idaman, Nusa Bayu, Nusa Bestari, Nusa Bestari 2, Nusa Duta,
Bukit Indah
,
Horizon Hills
and Sunway Iskandar are located within this zone.
[26]
Transportation
[
edit
]
The
Port of Tanjung Pelepas
, which ranks as Malaysia's largest container port since 2004 lies on the western side of the city. It is the
19th busiest container port in the world
as of 2013
[update]
. Iskandar Puteri houses the Puteri Harbour International Ferry Terminal, with routes to cities in
Indonesia
.
[27]
Rail
[
edit
]
HSR
High Speed Rail
[
edit
]
The planned
Kuala Lumpur?Singapore high-speed rail
will serve the city at
Gerbang Nusajaya
in the future.
[28]
[29]
On 29 March 2021, the
Perikatan Nasional
government failed to negotiate terms with Singapore and scrapped the project while compensating Singapore almost a third of a billion Ringgit (RM320,270,519.24), with the settlement representing the complete termination of the project and bilateral agreement.
[30]
The project was revived on 11th December 2023, by the His Majesty Sultan of Johor,
Sultan Ibrahim ibni Sultan Iskandar
prior to his ascension to the throne of
Malaysian 17th Paramount Ruler
.
[31]
Road
[
edit
]
Within Johor, the
Iskandar Coastal Highway
and
Pasir Gudang Highway
links the city to
Johor Bahru City
, while the Tanjung Kupang Road links the city to
Pontian District
. The
Second Link Expressway
and
North?South Expressway
connect the city to the other states in
Peninsular Malaysia
.
The
Malaysia?Singapore Second Link
was built between Kampong Ladang at
Tanjung Kupang
, Johor and Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim at
Tuas
, Singapore. The bridge was built to reduce the traffic congestion at the
Johor?Singapore Causeway
and was opened to traffic on 2 January 1998. The twin-deck bridge supports a dual-three lane
carriageway
and its total length over water is 1,920 m.
[32]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
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Districts
| |
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Key entities
| |
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Local authorities
| |
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Economic zones
| |
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Major towns and suburb
| |
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Major landmarks
| |
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Infrastructure
| |
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Education
| |
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Articles related to Iskandar Puteri
|
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|
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1,000,000?1,999,999
| |
---|
500,000?999,999
| |
---|
200,000?499,999
| |
---|
|
---|
|
Rank
|
Name
|
State
|
Municipal pop.
|
Rank
|
Name
|
State
|
Municipal pop.
|
|
Kuala Lumpur
Kajang
|
1
|
Kuala Lumpur
|
Federal Territory
|
1,982,112
|
11
|
Ipoh
|
Perak
|
759,952
|
Seberang Perai
Subang Jaya
|
2
|
Kajang
|
Selangor
|
1,047,356
|
12
|
Seremban
|
Negeri Sembilan
|
681,541
|
3
|
Seberang Perai
|
Penang
|
946,092
|
13
|
Iskandar Puteri
|
Johor
|
575,977
|
4
|
Subang Jaya
|
Selangor
|
902,086
|
14
|
Kuantan
|
Pahang
|
548,014
|
5
|
Klang
|
Selangor
|
902,025
|
15
|
Sungai Petani
|
Kedah
|
545,053
|
6
|
Johor Bahru
|
Johor
|
858,118
|
16
|
Ampang Jaya
|
Selangor
|
531,904
|
7
|
Shah Alam
|
Selangor
|
812,327
|
17
|
Kota Kinabalu
|
Sabah
|
500,425
|
8
|
George Town
|
Penang
|
794,313
|
18
|
Malacca City
|
Malacca
|
453,904
|
9
|
Petaling Jaya
|
Selangor
|
771,687
|
19
|
Sandakan
|
Sabah
|
439,050
|
10
|
Selayang
|
Selangor
|
764,327
|
20
|
Alor Setar
|
Kedah
|
423,868
|
|
|