Explore Kuala Lumpur

Jamek Mosque stands at the confluence of the Klang and Gombak rivers in central Kuala Lumpur. Designed by Arthur Benison Hubback in an Indo-Saracenic style and completed in 1909, it was the city's principal mosque until 1965; its domes, minarets and arcades of red brick and white plaster can be visited outside prayer times.

Sri Mahamariamman Temple is the oldest Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur, founded in 1873 by K. Thamboosamy Pillai and on its present site on Jalan Tun H.S. Lee, at the edge of Chinatown, since 1885. The current building dates from 1968; its five-tier gopuram gate tower, 22.9 m high and completed in 1972, carries 228 sculpted figures of Hindu deities.

The National Mosque of Malaysia, completed in 1965, stands in about five hectares of gardens near the old railway station of Kuala Lumpur. Its folded concrete roof forms a 16-pointed star shaped like an open umbrella beside a 73-metre minaret, with room for 15,000 worshippers; visitors are admitted outside prayer times with a dress code.

The Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, opened on 12 December 1998, holds more than 7,000 objects from across the Islamic world. Twelve galleries on two levels cover architecture, Qur'an manuscripts, art from India, China and the Malay world, arms, textiles, jewellery, coins, metal, wood and ceramics, and a restored 19th-century Ottoman room.

The National Museum of Malaysia, Muzium Negara, is the country's museum of history and culture on Jalan Damansara in Kuala Lumpur, near the Perdana Lake Gardens. Opened on 31 August 1963 in a building with a traditional Malay roof and modern features, it shows wedding and festival scenes, costumes, weapons, musical instruments, crafts and ceramics.

Thean Hou Temple is a six-tiered Chinese temple dedicated to the sea goddess Mazu, on Robson Heights in Kuala Lumpur. Built by the city's Hainanese community from 1981 and opened in 1989, it is run by the Selangor and Federal Territory Hainan Association; its red pillars and tiled roofs look out over the city.

Istana Negara is the official residence of the King of Malaysia, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, on Jalan Tuanku Abdul Halim in north-western Kuala Lumpur. Opened in 2011, the palace complex covers about 98 hectares and has 22 domes; it is not open to the public, and visitors see it from outside the main gate.

The Batu Caves are limestone caves in a hill in Gombak, Selangor, about 13 km north of Kuala Lumpur, used as a Hindu shrine since a temple to Murugan was completed there in 1891. A flight of 272 painted steps leads up to the Temple Cave beside a 42.7-metre gilded statue of Murugan unveiled in 2006, and the site is the centre of the yearly Thaipusam festival.