Penang - Name

Name

The name "Penang" comes from the modern Malay name Pulau Pinang, which means island of the areca nut palm (Areca catechu, family Palmae). The name Penang may refer either to the island of Penang (Pulau Pinang) or the state of Penang (Negeri Pulau Pinang). In Malay, Penang's capital George Town was called and labelled in old maps as Tanjung Bidara (Cape Penaigre), named after the many ballnut trees (also known as Alexandrian laurels, Calophyllum inophyllum) on the coast, but now usually shortened as Tanjung (the Cape).

Penang is often known as "The Pearl of the Orient", "东方花园" and Pulau Pinang Pulau Mutiara (Penang, Island of Pearls). Penang is shortened as "PG" or "PP" in Malay.

Early Malays called it Pulau Ka-Satu or "First (or Single) Island" because it was the largest island encountered on the trading sea-route between Lingga and Kedah. The Siamese, then the overlord of the Kedah Sultanate, referred to the island as Koh Maak. In the 15th century, the island of Penang was referred to as Bīnláng Yù (simplified Chinese: 槟榔屿; traditional Chinese: 檳榔嶼) in the navigational drawings used by Admiral Zheng He of Ming-dynasty China in his expeditions to the South Seas. Fifteenth-century Portuguese sailors from Goa en route to the Spice Islands often made stopovers on the island which they called Pulo Pinaom.