Mela­ka and George Town, his­toric cities of the Straits of Malac­ca have devel­oped over 500 years of trad­ing and cul­tur­al exchanges between East and West in the Straits of Malac­ca. The influ­ences of Asia and Europe have endowed the towns with a spe­cif­ic mul­ti­cul­tur­al her­itage that is both tan­gi­ble and intan­gi­ble. With its gov­ern­ment build­ings, church­es, squares and for­ti­fi­ca­tions, Mela­ka demon­strates the ear­ly stages of this his­to­ry orig­i­nat­ing in the 15th-cen­­tu­ry Malay sul­tanate and the Por­tuguese and Dutch peri­ods begin­ning in the ear­ly 16th cen­tu­ry. Fea­tur­ing res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial build­ings, George Town rep­re­sents the British era from the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry. The two towns con­sti­tute a unique archi­tec­tur­al and cul­tur­al town­scape with­out par­al­lel any­where in East and South­east Asia.