Pulau Ketam ("Crab Island", ) is an island located off the coast of

Port Klang Port Klang ( ms, Pelabuhan Klang) is a town and the main gateway by sea into Malaysia. Known during colonial times as Port Swettenham ( ms, Pelabuhan Swettenham) but renamed Port Klang in July 1972, it is the largest port in the country. It is l ...

Selangor Selangor (; ), also known by its Arabic language, Arabic honorific Darul Ehsan, or "Abode of Sincerity", is one of the 13 Malaysian states. It is on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and is bordered by Perak to the north, Pahang to the east ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

. The island is in the

intertidal zone The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of habitats with various species o ...

and the chief vegetation is

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

Background

The island is home to two predominantly

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

fishing villages founded circa 1880. The main village on the southern side of the island is also known as Pulau Ketam. The other village on the northeastern side is called Sungai Lima ("Fifth River", ), its location being at the fifth

inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In marine geogra ...

from the main village. The locals are mainly Teochew and

Hokkien The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...

Chinese, with Teochew,

and

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

the main dialects spoken. There is also a small recently relocated

Orang Asli Orang Asli (''lit''. "first people", "native people", "original people", "aborigines people" or "aboriginal people" in Malay) are a heterogeneous indigenous population forming a national minority in Malaysia. They are the oldest inhabitants of ...

community at the second inlet. The rest of the island consists of

mangrove swamp Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand fre ...

s. As the island is submerged during high tide, housing on the island consists of " floating houses" perched on wooden stilts above sea level. The main thoroughfares are narrow concreted pavements, whilst in the residential areas, the older rickety wooden plank bridges can still be seen. There are no cars on the island; bicycles, some of which are motorised, are the main means of transportation within the villages. There are no pavements linking the villages, the only means of transportation between villages is by boat. Daily ferry services link the island to Port Klang jetty on the mainland. The main economic activity on the island is fishing. The island is also a tourist spot.

In popular culture

Pulau Ketam is featured as the main filming location for 2015 Malaysian movie, ''Paint My Love''.

External links

References

Islands of Selangor Klang District Nature sites of Selangor {{Selangor-geo-stub