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Ipoh is the capital city of the Malaysian state of Perak, on the Kinta River about 200 km north of Kuala Lumpur. It is known for its British colonial-era architecture, its cuisine and its limestone hills, whose caves hold Buddhist temples such as Sam Poh Tong and Kek Lok Tong.
Originally a village, Ipoh grew quickly in the 1880s after huge deposits of tin were found in the Kinta Valley. The Great Fire of 1892 destroyed over half the town, which was rebuilt on a grid, and by 1895 it was the second largest town in the Federated Malay States. Ipoh replaced Taiping as the capital of Perak in 1937 and was declared a city in 1988.
With a population of 759,952 in 2020, Ipoh is the ninth-largest city in Malaysia. The closure of the tin mines brought decades of decline, but the conservation of its colonial buildings has made tourism a main driver of the economy, and the city is a hub on the West Coast railway line and the North-South Expressway.
Ipoh railway station is a white colonial building designed by Arthur Benison Hubback and opened in 1917, known locally as the Taj Mahal of Ipoh. It is the main railway terminal for the state, served by KTM ETS trains, and the building also houses the Majestic Hotel.
Ipoh Town Hall was completed in 1916 to a Neo-Classical design by Arthur Benison Hubback, opposite the railway station. It hosted concerts, plays and dances, Rabindranath Tagore spoke here in the late 1930s, and the Malay Nationalist Party held its first congress here in 1945.
The Birch Memorial Clock Tower in Ipoh was unveiled on 8 December 1909 in memory of James W. W. Birch, the first British Resident of Perak. Doulton panels show the growth of civilisation, and four statues above the clock stand for prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.
St. Michael's Institution in Ipoh is a Lasallian school founded by Father Coppin, whose main building was begun in 1922 and finished in 1923. The design of its chapel was inspired by the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, and in March 1942 the Japanese set up their Perak civil administration here.
Han Chin Pet Soo in Ipoh is the country's first Hakka tin mining museum, set in the clubhouse of the Hakka Tin Miners Club near Concubine Lane. The club was founded in 1893 and rebuilt in 1929, and it shows photographs and objects of the 19th and 20th centuries; visits must be booked.
The Darul Ridzuan Museum in Ipoh fills a two-storey mansion built in 1926 for the wealthy tin miner Foo Choong Kit. Sold to the Perak government in 1950 and used by the Public Works Department, it opened as a museum in 1992 with exhibits on Ipoh's history of mining and farming.
Kellie's Castle near Batu Gajah, south of Ipoh, is the unfinished mansion of the Scottish planter William Kellie-Smith, who brought 70 craftsmen and its bricks and marble from India. Work stopped when he died in 1926, and the ruin appeared in the 1999 film Anna and the King.
Panglima Kinta Mosque in Ipoh was built in 1898 near the Kinta River by Muhamad Yusuff bin Lassam, the Panglima Kinta, in memory of his wife. Its brick and lime plaster walls are white with blue lines in a mix of colonial, Mughal and Neoclassical styles, and it was gazetted in 2012.
Sam Poh Tong in Ipoh is the city's oldest and main cave temple, built inside a limestone hill about 5 km from the centre. A monk from China made the cave his home in 1890, other monks and nuns followed him, and the Mahayana Buddhist temple itself was built in the 1950s.
Kek Lok Tong, the Cavern of Utmost Happiness, is a cave temple in Ipoh, on the far side of the same limestone outcrop as Sam Poh Tong, reached through the Gunung Rapat housing area. Built around the 1970s, it sets Buddha statues among the stalactites and rocks of the cave.
Gunung Lang Recreational Park lies north of central Ipoh, below the limestone hills of Gunung Lang and Gunung Bilike. Opened in 1999 by Ipoh City Council and the National Landscape Department, it has a 14-hectare lake, a man-made waterfall, a 2 km swamp trail and a lookout tower.
The Lost World of Tambun is a theme park and hotel in Sunway City, Tambun, in the Malaysian city of Ipoh, managed by the Sunway Group. The 40-acre park opened on 11 November 2004 and was built within the surroundings of the limestone hills that are typical of the Kinta Valley around Ipoh.
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