Explore Malacca

St. Paul's Church is the roofless ruin of a church on the summit of St. Paul's Hill in Malacca, begun by the Portuguese as a chapel in 1521 and later used by the Dutch until Christ Church replaced it. Portuguese and Dutch tombstones stand along the walls inside, and a small white lighthouse tower stands at its front.

Christ Church is an Anglican church on Dutch Square in Malacca, built by the Dutch between 1741 and 1753 to mark a century since they took the city from the Portuguese. Originally Dutch Reformed, it is the oldest functioning Protestant church in Malaysia, and its red-painted façade stands beside the Stadthuys.

The Church of St. Francis Xavier is a Catholic church in Malacca, begun in 1849 by the French priest Father Farvé on the site of a Portuguese church of St Dominic and completed in 1856. Its twin-towered Gothic Revival façade has a rose window, and it is named after the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier, who worked in Malacca in the 16th century.

Kampung Kling Mosque on Jalan Tukang Emas in Malacca City was founded by Indian Muslim traders in 1748 as a wooden building and rebuilt in brick in 1872. It mixes Sumatran, Chinese, Hindu and Malay forms, with a tiered roof, a pagoda-like minaret and glazed tiles, and stands near the Cheng Hoon Teng and Sri Poyatha Moorthi temples.

Cheng Hoon Teng is a Chinese temple on Jalan Tokong in Malacca, founded in the 1600s by the Kapitan Tay Kie Ki and used for Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian worship. Its halls, rebuilt in 1801, have carved timberwork and roof ridges decorated with figures, and their restoration received a UNESCO Asia-Pacific heritage award in 2002.

The Malacca Straits Mosque stands on stilts at the edge of Pulau Melaka, an artificial island in Malacca, and was opened in 2006. Its gold dome, stained-glass archway and 30-metre minaret, which also serves as a lighthouse, face the Strait of Malacca. Visitors are asked to dress modestly and to avoid prayer times.

St. Peter's Church is a Roman Catholic church in Malacca City, built in 1710 for the Portuguese Eurasian community on land given by a Dutch convert, after decades in which the Dutch had suppressed Catholic worship. Its whitewashed facade with curved gables stands beside a bell tower marked with the year 1710.