Malaya is both a name and word that has different meanings in different places.
Malaya first recorded in the Vayu Purana (c. 1 BCE - 7 CE) as Malayadvipa (lit. 'Malaya island') refers to the Sumatra island. Malaya also mentioned in the Amoghapasa inscription (c. 1300s CE) found in the estuary of Batanghari river in West Sumatra, refers to the region in Sumatra.
Malaysia & Singapore
In the history of Malaysia and Singapore, "Malaya" (Malay: Tanah Melayu) can refer to:
British Malaya, (18th century-1946) a loose collection of British controlled states in the Malay Peninsula, including Singapore
The Malayan Union, (1946-1948) a post-war British colony consisting of all states in British Malaya, excluding Singapore
The Federation of Malaya (Persekutuan Tanah Melayu) (1948-1963), the successor of the Malayan Union (also excluding Singapore) which gained independence within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1957
present-day Peninsular Malaysia, the states and territories formerly comprising the Federation of Malaya (1963-present), now also known formally as the States of Malaya (Negeri-negeri Tanah Melayu)
Other uses
Malaya (movie), a 1949 American film set in Japanese occupied Malaya
In the Shambhala tradition, the name of a "National Forest" or sacred garden, comparable to the Garden of Eden.
Oxana Malaya (born 1983), a feral child that lived most of her life in the company of dogs, picking a number of their habits.
This disambiguation page lists articles that are about something that can be called Malaya. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the article meant.