Malaysia

Malaysia's entries are what a strait produces. Malacca sits on the shortest sea route between India and China and taxed everything that passed until the Portuguese took it in 1511, then the Dutch, then the British, each leaving a layer. George Town was a free port from 1786 where Malay, Chinese, Indian and Peranakan communities settled in adjacent streets, and the food is the result. Kuala Lumpur was a tin camp at a muddy confluence in 1857.