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Langkawi, officially known as Langkawi, the Jewel of Kedah (), is a duty-free island and an archipelago of 99 islands (plus five small islands visible only at low tide in the Strait of Malacca) located some off the coast of northwestern Malaysia and a few kilometres south of Ko Tarutao, adjacent to the Thailand border. Politically, it is an administrative district of Kedah, with Kuah as its largest town. Langkawi was developed as a tourist destination in the 1980s, and Pantai Cenang is the island's most popular beach and tourist area.
There are many suggestions for the origin of the name of Langkawi. According to one interpretation, Langkawi means island of the reddish-brown eagle, a brahminy kite in colloquial Malay language. The Malay word for eagle is helang (colloquially shortened to lang), and kawi is a red stone used as a chalk to mark goods. This interpretation was used to create the landmark sculpture of an eagle as the symbol of Langkawi at Dataran Helang (Eagle Square) in Kuah.
Some believed that Langkawi is the same as, or related to, the Lanka or Langkapuri mentioned in Indian sources. This ancient name Lanka (or Lankapura and Lankapuri) is found in Indian literature from an early period (named in Ramayana as the city of the king Ravana), although the identification of the original Lanka is not certain. or in Sanskrit means a town or city. The name Langkawi is also thought to be related to Langkasuka, an old kingdom believed to have links with Kedah. Some also thought that Langkawi means "many beautiful islands", being a Sanskrit word meaning "beautiful" while means "many".
In 2008, the Sultan Abdul Halim of Kedah, conferred the title of Langkawi Permata Kedah (meaning 'Langkawi, the Jewel of Kedah') upon the island as part of his golden jubilee as an affirmation of Kedah's ownership over the island.
The island of Langkawi was recorded in history by various travellers to the region. It was called Lóngyápútí (龍牙菩提) in the 14th century by the Yuan dynasty traveller Wang Dayuan. When the Ming dynasty admiral Zheng He visited the region, the island was marked as 龍牙交椅, Lóngyájiāoyǐ, on his map. In the 15th century, it was known to the Acehnese people as Pulau Lada ('Pepper Island'). In 1691, the French general Augustin de Beaulieu recorded going to the island of "Lancahui" (Langkawi) to buy pepper,Mohamed Zahir Haji Ismail (2025). 9789676110275, Utusan Publications & Distributors. . ISBN 9789676110275 and de Beaulieu was required to obtain a license from Kedah's heir apparent in Perlis before the penghulu or chief of Langkawi would sell pepper to him.
Langkawi was historically home to Austronesian peoples, such as the Orang Laut, originally from the southern part of the Malay Peninsula and Malay people. It had been thought to be cursed for a couple of centuries. According to local legend, in the late 18th century, a woman named Mahsuri was wrongfully accused of adultery and put to death. Before she died, she placed a curse on the island that would last for seven generations. Not long after Mahsuri's death, in 1821, the Siamese army invaded Kedah and attacked Langkawi. In the first attack, the locals burned down the granary at Padang Matsirat to starve the Siamese army. The Siamese nevertheless captured the island in May 1822, killed its leaders, and took many islanders as slaves, while others fled.Mohamed Zahir Haji Ismail (2025). 9789676110275, Utusan Publications & Distributors. . ISBN 9789676110275 Before the Siamese invasion, there was an estimated island population of 3,000–5,000, but only a small proportion was left after the invasion.
The island was recaptured from the Siamese in 1837. In 1840–1841, the Sultan of Kedah, who went into exile after the Siamese attacks, was allowed to return by the Siamese. The Langkawi islands' population recovered afterwards. However, the Orang Laut who fled after the Siamese attacks did not return. In 1909, the islands came under British rule following the Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909. The middle of the channel between Tarutao National Park and Langkawi became the Siamese border. During World War II, Siam took control briefly as British Malaya fell to the Japanese.
Langkawi was a haven for pirates who attacked junks in the northern part of the Strait of Malacca. In a series of operations, between December 1945 and March 1946, the British cleared the pirates' land bases on Langkawi and Tarutao. The British continued to rule until Malaya gained its independence in 1957.
Langkawi remained a quiet backwater until 1986, when Prime minister Mahathir Mohamad transformed it into a major tourist resort, helping to plan many of the islands' buildings himself. Mahsuri's seven-generation curse was said to have been lifted after a seventh generation descendant of Mahsuri was born in the Thai Phuket Province. The island rapidly grew as a tourist destination, and by 2012, it received over three million tourists a year.
The island's oldest geological formation, the Machinchang Formation, was the first part of Southeast Asia to rise from the seabed in the Cambrian over half a billion years ago. The oldest part of the formation is observable at Teluk Datai to the northwest of the island, where the exposed outcrop consists of mainly sandstone (quartzite) in the upper parts and shale and mudstone in the lower parts of the sequence. The best exposure of Cambrian rocks (541 to 485 Ma) in Malaysia is the Machinchang Formation, composed of quartzose
/ref> Geologically, all these rocks are in the Western Belt of Peninsular Malaysia, which is thought to be part of the Shan–Thai terrane.
Islam is practised primarily by ethnic Malays. Other major religions are Hinduism (mainly among Indians), Buddhism (mainly among Chinese and Thai people), and Christianity (mostly Chinese).
Standard Malay is the official language. English language is widely spoken and understood by the locals. Most natives speak a Langkawi variant of Kedah Malay, with minorities also speaking Chinese language, Tamil language and Southern Thai.
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List of Langkawi district representatives in the Kedah State Legislative Assembly.
The start of the cable car ride is located in the Oriental Village where there are several attractions, including a 3-Dimensional art museum known as Art in Paradise.
Langkawi International Airport is one of seven international airports in Malaysia and connects the island to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Penang and Subang.
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