The mouth of the largest river on the peninsula and, in the campaign board's judgement, the eastern coast's chief port.
Gold, tin and forest goods come down it and Chinese ships come to it (board). Pahang (Peng-fong) appears in the Zhufan zhi of about 1225 among San-fo-ts'i's dependencies; nothing names a ruler for 1200. The English Wikipedia article on the Pahang kingdom says almost nothing about the time before 1700, so the evidence here is the Zhufan zhi, the campaign board and the geography.
Who holds it
- Title
- Lord or headman of Kuala Pahang
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Lord in 1200
not known: no source names a lord, governor or headman for 1 January 1200
How things stand that morning
No lord, governor or garrison is named by any source for 1 January 1200. Treat as a landing or settlement on the route whose overlord, if any, is not known.
Wealth
Gold, tin and forest goods.
Places of note
- The gold of Raub: Gold in quartz reefs and stream gravels on the eastern slope of the main range, the best gold on the peninsula (board).
- The tin of Sungai Lembing: Tin in lodes in the hills behind the Kuantan coast, worked from the surface (board).
- The bird caves of Gua Charas: A limestone hill hollow with caves full of swiftlets and bats; nests and guano (board; the pre-Ming nest trade is not shown).
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board's bird caves of Gua Charas assume a nest trade to China in 1200; we could not find that trade dated before the Ming, so it is the campaign board's inference.
Evidence: Thin: from the campaign board's inference, archaeology and later sources; nothing dated 1 January 1200 names it.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
Primary sources for Malay ports
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The Leiden grants of Rajaraja I and Kulottunga I concerning the Srivijaya vihara at Nagapattinam, The Chola chancery (Rajaraja I, Rajendra I, Kulottunga I) (the Larger plates about 1005 to 1014 (completed under Rajendra I); the Smaller plates 1090). Background documents for the relations between the Cholas and the Malay world. Read online
- The Grahi (Chaiya) Buddha inscription and the Tambralinga records, Various (the officers of Grahi and the kings of Tambralinga), edited by George Coedes (the Chaiya bronze Buddha inscription 1183; the Nakhon Si Thammarat records 13th century; edited 1929, revised 1961). The peninsula in 1200 has one near-contemporary dated text: the Old Khmer inscription on the base of a bronze Buddha from Wat Hua Wiang at Chaiya, dated 1183, which records the image's casting by order of the mahasenapati Galanai, governor of Grahi, under the king Srimat Trailokyaraja Maulibhusanavarmadeva, a name that is argued to be either a Malayu (Srivijaya) overlord or a local king.
- A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
- The Description of the Country, called the Nagarakretagama, Mpu Prapanca (1365 at the Majapahit court). A Majapahit court poem of 1365 listed here only for its retrospect. Read online
Sources and studies
- Chinese Wikipedia, San-fo-qi (paraphrase of the Zhufan zhi list of fifteen dependencies)
- OMNIA board note (a lead only, checked against the sources above)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.