Phuket Province
Langkawi remained a quiet backwater until 1986, when Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad transformed it into a major tourist resort, helping to plan many of the islands' buildings himself. Mahsuri's seven generation curse was said to have lifted as a seventh generation descendant of Mahsuri, then living in Phuket Province, was born. The island rapidly grew as a tourist destination, and by 2012, it received over three million tourists a year.