Federation of Malaya

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Larut War (1861–1874)
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Federated Malay States (1895–1946)
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World War II (1941–1945)
Battle of Malaya (1941–42)
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Battle of Muar (1942)
Battle of Singapore (1942)
Syburi (1942–1945)
Battle of North Borneo (1945)
Sandakan Death Marches (1945)
Malayan Union (1946–1948)
Federation of Malaya (1948–1963)
Malayan Emergency (1948–1960)
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Independence Day (1957)
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Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation (1962–1966)
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May 13 Incident (1969)
New Economic Policy (1971–1990)
Operation Lalang (1987)
1988 Malaysian constitutional crisis (1987–88)
Asian financial crisis (1997–98)
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The Federation of Malaya (Malay: Persekutuan Tanah Melayu), was a federation of 11 states formed on January 31 1948 from the nine Malay states and the British settlements of Penang and Malacca.

From 1946 to 1948, the 11 states formed a single crown colony known as the Malayan Union. Due to opposition from Malay nationalists, the Union was disbanded and replaced by the Federation of Malaya, which restored the symbolic positions of the rulers of the Malay states.

Within the Federation, while the Malay states were protectorates of the United Kingdom, Penang and Malacca remained British colonial territories. Like the Malayan Union before it, the Federation did not include Singapore, which before this time had usually been considered to be part of Malaya.

The Federation achieved independence within the Commonwealth of Nations on August 31, 1957. In 1963, the federation together with Singapore, Sarawak and British North Borneo (which was renamed Sabah) formed a new federation called Malaysia. Singapore separated from Malaysia to become an independent republic on August 9, 1965.

Federation of Malaya Population
Year	Malay	Chinese	Indian	Other
1948	2,457,014	1,928,965	536,646	64,802
1951	2,631,154	2,043,971	566,371	75,726
Source: Annual Report on the Federation of Malaya: 1951 in C.C. Chin and Karl Hack, Dialogues with Chin Peng pp. 380, 81.