page_title: Malaysian Indians
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Malaysian Indians / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: English: Little India, Central Malacca, Malacca, Malaysia
context_page_description: Malaysian Indians or Indian Malaysians is a local ethnic group in Malaysia. The group is defined as local Malaysians of Indian or South Asian ancestry. Today, they form the third largest group in Malaysia after the Malays and the Chinese. Most are descendants of those who migrated from India to Malaysia during the British colonisation of Malaya.
  Majority of Malaysian Indians are ethnic Tamil Indians, with other smaller groups such as Malayali, Telugu, Sikhs and others. Malaysian Indians form the 5th largest community of Overseas Indians in the world. Within Malaysia, they represent the third largest group, after the ethnic Malay and Chinese. They are usually simply referred to as "Indian" in Malaysia, Orang India in Malay, "Yin du ren" in Chinese.
  Malaysia's Indian population is notable for its class stratification, with large elite and lower income groups and diverse racial differences even within its fold. Malaysian Indians make up a disproportionately large percentage of professionals per capita - constituting 15.5% of Malaysia's professionals in 1999. As of a census taken in 1984, up to 38% of the nation's medical professional workforce consists of Malaysian Indians.
context_section_description: 7.0% of the Malaysian population are Indians as of 2016.
  There is a close correspondence between the ethnic and occupational divisions of the South Asian community, and this is inevitably reflected in the community's geographical distribution in Malaya. The South Indian Tamils were the majority throughout the country, on the rubber estates and railways, though a significant proportion found employment on the docks in Penang and Singapore.
  Selangor is the state with the most number of Indians in terms of absolute number whereas Negeri Sembilan is the state with the highest proportion of Malaysian Indians making up the population.
  Non-citizens are excluded in figures and percentage
  Population estimates are rounded to the nearest hundred.
caption: Little India in Melaka City, Melaka.
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