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Kulim is the third largest
town in Kedah after
Alor Star and Sungai Petani is located
at the South East of Kedah state and East of
Penang state in Malaysia. The nearest
town is Bukit Mertajam.
Kulim as a
town was started in mid 18th century by 100 Malays from Pattani. By mid
19th century Kulim experienced a boom due to the discovery of tin ore. By
1890, there were 400 Chinese miners operating in Kulim. One of Kulim’s
earliest settlements was a place called Belakang Tebok.
The biggest tin mining facilities in Kulim were Taman Tunku Putra, Kg.
Bukit Besar, Karangan, Terap and Kelang Lama. Archived records show that
by 1854 there were 8 tin mining companies that were active in Kulim with a
total workforce of 1500 people.
In 1888, there was a major incident in Kulim, dubbed ‘Beautiful Nyonya
War’ (Perang Nyonya Cantik) or Kulim War (Perang Kulim). This incident
started when the mining chiefs of Kulim fought over a popular Chinese lady
of the time. The chiefs mobilized their respective workers in this
seemingly minor squabble escalated into a major riot. Peace and
tranquility enjoyed by the people of Kulim was disrupted by this incident
and it dragged on for a number of years, and claimed a number of lives of
the involved parties.
Kulim still
maintains shop houses that were around since before the second world war.
Unfortunately, many of these houses were demolished to make way for newer
structures of development. The independence clock serves as the city’s
landmark, and is one of the old structures that remain in place.
The Kulim
Hi-Tech Park (KHTP), officially opened in 1996, is the first Hi-Tech Park
in Malaysia. The KHTP is conceived and developed as one of the national
strategies of Vision 2020 for Malaysia to become a fully-industrialised
nation by 2020, Envisioned to be the ‘Science City of The Future’, the
KHTP has continually being developed and promoted as an integrated science
park targeting clean, capital-intensive, and high, value-added
technology-related industries primarily in the fields of advanced
electronics, mechanical electronics, telecommunications, semiconductors,
optoelectronics, biotechnology, advanced materials, research and
development and emerging technologies.
Kulim is
home to many recently opened suburbs. One of the biggest suburbs is Taman
Selasih, complete with its own commercial centre, it also called as "New
Town". Paya Besar is the 2nd most famous suburb in Kulim. It also known as
Kulim's Little India.
Sources:
Wikipedia
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