Baling
| Baling District | |
|---|---|
| District of Malaysia | |
| Country |
 Malaysia
|
| State |
 Kedah
|
| Seat | Baling |
| Government | |
| • District officer | Ahmad Fisol Md Nor |
| Area | |
| • Total | 1,530 km2 (590 sq mi) |
| Population (2009) | |
| • Total | 204,300 |
| • Density | 130/km2 (350/sq mi) |
| Postcode | 09xxx |
| Calling code | +6-04 |
| Vehicle registration | K |
The Baling District (Chinese: 华玲) is a town, an administrative district and a parliamentary constituency in southeastern Kedah, Malaysia. Located about 110 km from Alor Setar, it borders Perak and Betong, the southernmost town of Thailand.
The name Baling can be traced to a series of events detailed in the story of Raja Bersiong (The Fanged King), a popular legend of Kedah, recorded in the Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa. Raja Bersiong was a ruthless vampire-like king with a taste for human blood who preyed on his subjects. His subjects finally rose against him and burned down the palace. When the fanged king fled his palace at the Old Kedah capital in Lembah Bujang, he fled to a place named Merbau and began removing his fangs by twisting them by hand. As a result of the twisting act, Merbau was renamed as Merbau Pulas where pulas in Malay means twisting.
After the king had successfully removed both his fangs, he threw them away to a faraway place. The place where he stood when he threw his fangs is known as Baling which means throw and the place believed to be the site where the fangs landed was named Siong, which means fang in Malay, one of the villages in Baling district.
The name Baling is also from Thai language "Ba Taling" (Thai: บ่าตลิ่ง; "river bank").
Baling was also the site where the leaders of the Malay Races Liberation Army, the newly formed Malayan Government, and the British met in 1955 to try to end the Malayan Emergency. Tunku Abdul Rahman, a leader of the Malayan government, implored the Communists to give up their arms peacefully by promising that no retaliatory action would be taken against them. The MRLA leader Chin Peng expressed skepticism of a pardon promised by the leader of a nation that had yet to gain its independence (Malaya's independence was gained in two years later in 1957). Chin Peng insisted that the Malayan government and the British endorse the MRLA as a legal Communist Party so that it could run in the forthcoming elections. This was denied, however, and thus no agreement was reached.
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