Central Market (Pasar Seni) & Petaling Street

Central Market was established in 1888 as a wet market, and Kuala Lumpur's Chinese Kapitan, Yap Ah Loy, is credited with building it. The market was expanded several times, and the present Art Deco building was completed in 1937. In the 1970s there were plans to demolish it, but the Malaysian Heritage Society (Badan Warisan Malaysia) intervened, and the building is now classified as a heritage site. After renovation in the mid-1980s, it reopened in 1986 as a centre for arts and handicrafts. The covered Kasturi Walk alongside it opened in 2011.

Petaling Street's history goes back to the same era. Yap Ah Loy opened a tapioca mill on the street, grinding tubers from his farms into flour, which is why it is known in Cantonese as Chee Cheong Kai, Starch Factory Street. The area grew into the commercial centre of the Chinese community that helped found Kuala Lumpur as a tin-mining town. The large Chinese-style arches at either end and the green roof over the street were added in 2003.

In 2019, the back lane of Lorong Panggung, known as Kwai Chai Hong (Little Ghost Lane), was restored with murals of early Chinatown life and has become a popular stop for visitors.

This is where Kuala Lumpur's many communities overlap. Chinese traders still run family shops and coffee houses in the old shophouses, Indian devotees visit the Sri Mahamariamman Temple, and Malay, Indian and Bangladeshi traders work alongside them in the markets. Locals come for traditional medicine halls, hardware shops and long-established eateries, while the area fills with lanterns and decorations for Chinese New Year and other festivals.