PUTRAJAYA
Putrajaya (25 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur) is the new administrative capital of Malaysia. Built on a site once occupied by rubber and palm oil plantations at cost of $5.3 billion, roughly half of the government total annual budget at the time it was being constructed, it is the home of the offices of the prime minister and his cabinet and is one of the largest construction projects ever in construction-happy Southeast Asia.
Putrajaya was completed in the early 2010s and occupies 4,581 hectares of land, provides homes for 330,000 people and contains offices for almost every federal government agency. It has dozens of block-size modern office buildings with Islamic touches, wide boulevards lined with apartment blocks, a modern phone system, the latest sewage infrastructure, and satellite residences. Surrounding the city center is one the world’s largest man-made lake with a floating mosque and two-tiered concrete bridge.
Touted as an urban utopia, it has been carefully planned. landscaped and filled with architectural marvels About 38 percent of the land is earmarked for green areas such as parks, forests and wetlands.. Another 10 percent of the land is covered the seven-kilometer-long artificial lake. Fiber optic cables are connected to every house, providing all residents with quality Internet access. Fences and television antenna are banned as unsightly eyesores. Private cars are discouraged. People are encouraged to use "environmentally benign" system of buses, metros and ferries
Putrajaya is named after Malaysia’s first prime minister, Abdul Rahman Putra Al Haj and incorporates the Malay word for success (“jaya”). It was one of the pet projects of Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who said, “Putrajaya will symbolize the nation’s aspirations: and “be a city that characterizes the spirit of Malaysia in its fullest sense in the 21st century.” Construction of began in 1996. The project was slowed by Asian economic crisis in 1997-98 but construction continued even when the government was posting record deficits. The first phase of the project cost $1.3 billion and was built largely by foreign workers from Bangladesh and Indonesia. It opened in 1999 when a handful of bureaucrats moved into their new offices there.
Putrajaya has a population of about 67,964 and covers an area of 49 square kilometers. As Putrajaya filled with Malay bureaucrats, many said the new capital would be dominated by the Malay government elite and Kuala Lumpur would be dominated by the Chinese business elite. Some think that will never happen and Putrajaya could end like Brasilia: a ghost town in the jungle full of modern buildings that nobody wants to live or work in.
Karrie Jacobs wrote in ravel & Leisure: Putrajaya “is the world's most recent example of the planned city. This 19-square-mile development...was the particular obsession of Malaysia's former prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad. During his 22 years in office, Dr. Mahathir used major building projects — most notably the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur — to establish his vision of Malaysia as a technologically advanced Islamic state, at once aggressively modern and rooted in tradition. Though elected to office, Dr. Mahathir held the kind of centralized power generally associated with dictators, and his dream of a Multimedia Super Corridor with Putrajaya as its nucleus was driven by his need to build something grander, more advanced, than Singapore, the famously technocratic city-state that sits at the tip of the Malay Peninsula. Dr. meters, as the prime minister was popularly known, closely supervised the construction of his $5 billion-plus city of the future — largely underwritten by the state-owned oil company Petronas — from a helicopter or on horseback. [Source: Karrie Jacobs, Travel & Leisure, January 2005]
Getting There: Putrajaya can be reached by KLIA transit trains from Kuala Lumpur International Airport or Sentral station near downtown Kuala Lumpur. It's about a 20-minute ride from either location. By Car/ Taxi or Bus: Putrajaya is located 25 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur and 20 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). It can be reached by expressways, urban highways and railways. The most convenient way to get there is to hire a car or a taxi for the day to better explore Putrajaya. By Bus: Parkmay (Cityliner No. 868) comes every 20 minutes. The route is Sinar Kota-Komuter Serdang-Putrajaya-Cyberjaya. Sepang Omnibus (No. 536B) goes through Sepang-Banting- Dengkil-Cyberjaya-Putrajaya every 3 hours. Kelang-Banting Bus (No.131) follows Kelang-Banting- Dengkil-Cyberjaya-Putrajaya route every 2 hours. Sum Omnibus (No. 186) from Kajang Terminal Bus, UNITEN- Putrajaya and Cyberjaya runs every 1-2 hours. (Putrajaya Internal Nadi Putra bus services are available at 50 sen per ride). By Train: Catch the ERL train towards the KLIA airport from KL's Sentral station. Express Rail Link (ERL) Route: KL Sentral/Bandar Tasik Putrajaya/Cyberjaya/Salak Tinggi/KLIA Frequency : every half hour (peak hours), every hour (off peak hours).
Buildings and Infrastructure at Putrajaya
One of the first buildings to be completed was office of the prime minister. Situated on top of a bluff, it has green domes and moats on three sides. The Botanical Gardens contains more than 700 plant species from across Asia and Africa and welcomes visitors with a giant mechanical praying mantis and 170-meter-long bridge spanning a valley planted with tropical plants and set up to resemble a rain forest.
The palace that was lived in by Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad during the last years of his long reign as prime minister cost $53 million and is now occupied by Malaysia’s current prime minister. Built on 16-hectare hill overlooking a lake, it is a brown structure with a green Moorish-style dome and is part of a complex that includes state rooms, a banquet hall, meeting rooms and guest rooms.. The Putra mosque is another onion-domed building. Built of rose-colored granite, it boasts a 116-meter minaret and a collection of rare Korans and can accommodate 15,000 worshipers.
Putrajaya is connected by high-speed railroad to the newish Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Guided tours that cost only 25 cents leave daily from the arrival hall in the airport at 1:00pm. The tour takes about four hours and includes stop at all the major buildings. Visitors get to enter parts of the prime minister’s residence, including the chandelier-lit-up banquet hall, a prayer chamber with walls carved with Muslim calligraphy and a meeting room and guest lounge and the bougainvillea-filled garden.
In the mid 2000s, there are plans to construct a huge shopping mall, an artificial picnic beach, water theme park and maritime museum. About 200,000 tourists visit Putrajaya every year, The government hopes that many more than that will show up in the not too distant future. Website: ppj.gov.my
Putra Perdana is the Prime Minister's Department Complex housing several government buildings and agencies. It is located on the main hill in Putrajaya, and was built in 1997. The buildings in the complex are incluenced by Malay, Islamic and European architecture, hence its unique look. This building has also become the icon for Putrajaya, with its distinctive green dome and clay like colored buildings. Besides the government complexes, are also the Putra Mosque, the Dataran Putra, and Perdana Walk. Contact: Kuala Lumpur Tourist Office, Tel: 603-2615 8188, Tourism Info Line, Tel: 1-300-88-5776
The Istana Kehakiman or Palace of Justice is a majestic looking building, and houses the judicial department and courts. The complex comprises five- storey building for the judiciary and a two-storey building to house the courts and offices. Since the area has a large courtyard, it is often used as a venue for national level events such as Colors of Malaysia fest, and many more. A great place for outdoor photography, with the impressive domed minarets as a focal viewpoint.
Visiting Putrajaya
Karrie Jacobs wrote in Travel & Leisure: “On my first morning in Putrajaya...I try to walk to the surreal urban landscape — a kind of Southeast Asian Epcot — that I see from my hotel balcony. The temperature is already in the nineties as I slip out the back door of the Shangri-La, a swank hilltop hotel that bears a passing resemblance to the Arizona Biltmore, and make my way through a lush, meticulously landscaped public garden and past the Putrajaya Landmark, a soaring tepee-shaped stainless-steel spire reminiscent of the former Soviet Union. Ultimately, I discover that the path I'm on doesn't lead into town but instead circles back to the hotel. To get to Putrajaya Square and the 250-foot-tall, buttercream pink-domed Putra Mosque, as well as the massive Moghul-style Perdana Putra — the prime minister's office building — I would have to scramble across the grass and over a drainage ditch and tackle a four-lane roadway without benefit of a crosswalk. As an American in a predominantly Islamic country at this dicey moment in geopolitical history, I'm not eager to break rules; I don't even want to jaywalk. So, sweat-soaked and puzzled, I climb the hill back to the hotel and my air-conditioned room.” [Source: Karrie Jacobs, Travel & Leisure, January 2005]
Eventually, I find a way to walk to the center of town and stroll the 2 1/2-mile Boulevard, a straight shot from the green onion domes of the Perdana Putra to the assertively Modernist, bowl-shaped convention center. The Boulevard is outfitted with wide sidewalks and spacious public plazas. It is the perfect pedestrian promenade — except that I'm the only pedestrian. As I walk, I begin thinking that Putrajaya is like a compendium of every utopian planning idea that's come before it. This central spine, for instance, bookended by two monumental buildings, could have come directly from Pierre L'Enfant's 1792 plan for Washington, D.C., or Albert Speer's unrealized 1930's plan for Berlin.
“Putrajaya is a crazy mix of architectural styles. Some structures, such as the "vision" bridge, a composition of cables strung from an angled steel wishbone, look toward the future. Others, like the Ministry of Justice, a variation on the Taj Mahal, look to the past. The government buildings that line the Boulevard, however, are mostly a jarring fusion of extremely modern materials and methods with traditional Islamic decorative touches. One, for instance, features a dramatic 12-story Persian-style arch made of a prickly stainless-steel mesh. It's as if the postmodern movement that gripped America in the 1980's had mined the Middle East, instead of Greece and Rome, for its historical references.
“The only thing that I'm sure of as I explore this meticulously planned place, with its numbered precincts, its eight "signature" bridges, and a special style of streetlamp for each neighborhood, is that the urban renewal bug that infected the Europeans and the Americans in the 20th century has been passed along to the Asians.”
“My arrival in Putrajaya coincides with the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. The holiday only adds another layer to the native strangeness of Putrajaya. On the first day of Ramadan, every place Captain Halim takes me on a three-hour drive around the city is totally depopulated.The prime minister's residence, normally open to the public, is shuttered. Only the mosque, where I have to don a long, neon pink visitor's gown to gain admission, seems even a little bit busy.
“But I'm not sure that Ramadan was the only problem. As with many planned cities, there is something inherently artificial about Putrajaya. While disorganized, chaotic Kuala Lumpur — a city that makes few concessions to the needs of pedestrians — is teeming with people, Putrajaya, with its plethora of formal plazas and really big buildings, seems to offer few incentives for anyone to actually come out in public.
“Everyone I meet during my visit tells me that I must go to Alamanda, the newly opened shopping mall. Strange: Here I am in the Emerald City, and people keep directing me to Paramus, New Jersey. I shrug off the suggestion until, finally — why not? — I go. Anchored by a Carrefour department store, the mall has a Starbucks, a Levi's store, and a boutique called Al-Ikhsan that features traditionally modest clothing, like the shalwar kameez, in psychedelic colors and sheer fabrics. But the Malaysian-style food court is where the action is. The indoor plaza lined with stalls selling chicken and rice, dim sum, curry, noodles, and more chicken and rice is where non-Muslims can eat lunch during Ramadan without feeling rude or out of place. For the first time in days, I relax.
“Maybe it's just that the mall is air-conditioned. Or maybe it's because it is comfortably unmonumental. I mean, as malls go, Alamanda is architecturally ambitious, with high, curved airplane-hangar ceilings and whimsical towers marking the main entrance. But by Putrajaya standards, it's low-key. My guess is that people congregate here because it's the most normal place in town. So for an hour or two I forget all about Pierre L'Enfant, Albert Speer, Le Corbusier, and Ebenezer Howard. I even forget about Walt Disney. I decide that the most inspired planner, the real genius behind Putrajaya, is Victor Gruen, inventor of the shopping mall.”
Melawati Palace
Melawati Palace (in Precinct 1, Putrajaya) has a resort concept and serves as a retreat for the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. Melawati literally means guard’s tower. Designed by YM Raja Datuk Kamarul Bahrin, the palace comprises four components: Royal Wing, Arrival Wing, Meetings Wing and the Administration Block. Three guard’s towers form a prominent structure at the side and center of the palace. Inside the palace at the main staircase of the Meeting Wing, is a Melawati which is made from chengal wood topped with golden roof.
The Royal Wing consists the following components: 1) Royal Bedroom; 2) Royal Resting Room; 3) Royal Banquet Room; 4) Office of the Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong; 5) Office of the Seri Paduka Baginda Raja Permaisuri Agong; 6) Royal Bath (Royal Swimming Pool); 7) Royal Kitchen; 8) Royal Guest House; 9) Royal Gallery; 10 ) Main Meeting Room.
Putra Mosque
Putra Mosque (in Putrajaya) is a pink-domed mosque constructed with rose-tinted granite. It can accommodate 15,000 worshippers at any one time. The basement wall of the mosque resembles a wall of the King Hassan Mosque in Casablanca, Morocco.
The mosque consists of three main functional areas — 1) the prayer hall, 2) the Sahn, or courtyard, and 3) various learning facilities and function rooms. The prayer hall is simple and elegant, supported by 12 columns. The highest point below the dome is 80 meters (250 feet) above ground level. The Sahn, landscaped with several decorative water features and bordered by colonnades, provides a huge yet welcoming and beautiful prayer space. The mosque’s impressive minaret is influenced by the design of the Sheikh Omar Mosque in Baghdad. At 116 meters, it is one of the tallest minarets in the region and has five tiers, representing the Five Pillars of Islam.
Getting There: By Bus: Parkmay (Cityliner No. 868) comes every 20 minutes. The route is Sinar Kota-Komuter Serdang-Putrajaya-Cyberjaya. Sepang Omnibus (No. 536B) goes through Sepang-Banting- Dengkil-Cyberjaya-Putrajaya every 3 hours. Kelang-Banting Bus (No.131) follows Kelang-Banting- Dengkil-Cyberjaya-Putrajaya route every 2 hours. Sum Omnibus (No. 186) from Kajang Terminal Bus, UNITEN- Putrajaya and Cyberjaya runs every 1-2 hours. (Putrajaya Internal Nadi Putra bus services are available at 50 sen per ride). By Train: Catch the ERL train towards the KLIA airport from KL's Sentral station. Express Rail Link (ERL) Route: KL Sentral/Bandar Tasik Putrajaya/Cyberjaya/Salak Tinggi/KLIA Frequency : every half hour (peak hours) every hour (off peak hours). By Car: The most convenient way to get there is to hire a car or a taxi for the day to better explore Putrajaya.
Putrajaya Bridge and Cruise
Putrajaya lake is in the heart of the administration city, and visitors can take a leisure cruise on the lake. One can view stunning vistas of the surrounding area from the cruise, including the Putrajaya Mosque, Putrajaya Bridge as well as several government administrative buildings. Visitors can opt to sail the lake on a passenger cruise boat day or, spectacularly, at night! The air-conditioned cruise boat seats 76 persons comfortably, and one can see the landmarks of Putrajaya via its wrap-around glass windows. There are also open air boats (perahu) that can be used for small groups of people.
Deemed to be the most important of the bridges in Putrajaya, the 435-m concrete bridge connects the Government Precinct to the Mixed Development Precinct, with the upper level of the bridge forming part of the Boulevard, the main street in the capital.
The three-tier bridge is inspired by the Islamic architecture of the famous Khaju Bridge in Isfahan, Iran. Its magnificent attractions are the four minaret-type piers, complete with observation decks, overlooking the Putrajaya Lake. This unique bridge provides access to pedestrians, vehicles and a monorail, while its pier will be developed into a fine dining area with a place for boats to berth.
Putrajaya Parks
Putrajaya Botanical Garden (Taman Botani) is the biggest botanical garden in Malaysia. Covering an area over 92 hectares, the park is divided into three sections — flowers, ornamental plants and preservation/research purposes. The flower garden currently has more than 700 species of flowering plants, local plants as well as plants from the Asia-Pacific and Africa regions. The area also serves as a research centre, with its multi-purpose collection. Kids will be delighted with the huge collection and exotic flowers, and educationists will be able to see many species of plants at the research centre. There is also a Visitors' Interpretative Centre (VIC), explorer's trail, palm hill, sun and floral gardens for visitors wishing to experience more from the Botanical Garden.
The Putrajaya wetlands is also the first man-made wetland in Malaysia. The Wetland Park includes the Wetland Park (138 hectares) and the wetland areas (1977 hectares). The Wetland has an 18 meter lookout tower, plant nursery, nature trails, flamingo pond, picnic areas as well as other interesting attractions. Visitors can also get information on the conservation of the wetland and its importance to the ecosystem of Putrajaya.
The Agriculture Heritage Park, located at Precinct 16, emphasizes Malaysia’s agricultural products that have commercial values. Visitors can sample fresh fruits and observe activities such as rubber tapping, latex collection, crop maintenance, fruits preservation and many others. Among the attractions here include the visitors' complex, an orchard, a herbs and spices track, clonal rubber plot and viewing deck. The park also offers many agro-products for sale, while various agro-based activities and programs are arranged for visitors all-year round.
Contact: Taman Warisan Pertanian Putrajaya: Address: No 7, Jalan P16, Presint 16, 62150 Putrajaya., Tel: 603-8887 7772, Fax: 603-8887 5038, Email: twp@ppj.gov.my
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: Malaysia Tourism websites, Malaysia government websites, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Lonely Planet guides, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Japan News, Yomiuri Shimbun, Compton's Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Updated in Janaury 2026