Origin of Name
The name Baling can be traced to a series of events detailed in the story of Raja Bersiong (The Fanged King), a popular legend of Kedah, recorded in the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. Raja Bersiong was a ruthless vampire-like king with a taste for human blood who preyed on his subjects. His subjects finally rose against him and burned down the palace. When the fanged king fled his palace at the Old Kedah capital in Lembah Bujang, he fled to a place named Merbau and began removing his fangs by twisting them by hand. As a result of the twisting act, Merbau was renamed as Merbau Pulas where pulas in Malay means twisting.
After the king had successfully removed both his fangs, he threw them away to a faraway place. The place where he stood when he threw his fangs is known as Baling which means throw and the place believed to be the site where the fangs landed was named Siong, which means fang in Malay, one of the villages in Baling district.
The name Baling is also from Thai language "Ban Ling" (บ้านลิง) means in Malay "Kampung kera".
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