Penang: George Town, a UNESCO heritage site

A historic crossroads of Chinese, Malay, Indian and European cultures, George Town on Penang island preserves a UNESCO colonial center.

George Town, UNESCO World Heritage site, is comfortably explored on foot among murals and colonial architecture.

The Fort Cornwallis, built by the British East India Company in the eighteenth century, marks the point where the island's colonial founder first landed.

Just nearby, the neighborhood of Little India and the adjacent Chinatown coexist side by side, with Hindu temples, Taoist temples, and mosques often separated by just tens of meters.

Continuing, you admire the street art of George Town, murals and wrought iron installations that tell the multicultural history of the city through its streets.

As evening falls, the market at Gurney Drive, along the waterfront, offers the celebrated street food of Penang, considered among the best in southeast Asia.

George Town was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 together with Malacca precisely for its multicultural colonial architecture, the unique testimony of coexistence among Chinese, Indian, Malay, and European communities on an urban scale.

Penang's street cuisine, a blend of Chinese, Malay, and Indian culinary traditions, is considered by many food critics among the richest and most diverse in all of Asia.