Countdown Clock

Chinatown, Merdeka Square & Bukit Nanas


Best viewed at night when it's illuminated, this low laying black boxy structure incorporates waterfall 'curtains' that part when you stand in front of them. The clock part is counting down to 2020, a date Malaysia set itself back in the 1980s for becoming a modernised, affluent nation.

The clock is part of the River of Life city beautification project.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Chinatown, Merdeka Square & Bukit Nanas attractions

1. St Mary’s Anglican Cathedral

0.06 MILES

This handsome Gothic Revival English country church was designed by government architect AC Norman and erected in 1894 on the site of an earlier wooden…

2. Royal Selangor Club

0.12 MILES

Founded in 1884, this exclusive members-only social club is where the running-and-drinking club, the Hash House Harriers, kicked off in 1938. The present…

3. Merdeka Square

0.13 MILES

The huge open square, where Malaysian independence was declared in 1957, is speared by a 95m flagpole, one of the world's tallest. In the British era, the…

4. Sultan Abdul Samad Building

0.14 MILES

Seizing attention with its 41m clock tower, coppery domes and lacy arches, this was the first public building in Malaysia designed in the Mogul (or Indo…

5. Masjid Jamek Sultan Abdul Samad

0.14 MILES

This graceful, onion-domed mosque, designed by British architect AB Hubback, borrows Mogul and Moorish styles with its brick-and-plaster banded minarets…

6. Masjid India

0.17 MILES

The original wooden mosque that gave the area its name was built in 1883, and replaced by a bulky red-granite tiled modern structure in 1963. It's not…

7. Victorian Fountain

0.17 MILES

This fountain dating from 1904 is said to have been built in memory of an inspector of the Selangor Military; at one time horses would have lapped water…

8. Lat Cartoon Sculptures

0.18 MILES

The cartoonist known as Lat (his real name is Mohammad Nor Khalid) is a beloved figure in the Malaysian media. Fun, life-size sculptures based on his…