Malaysian license plates come in a few forms however they all contains variants of black and white. The most common Malaysian plates feature two white sections amongst the black. This contrasts Indonesian plates which most commonly have three white sections amongst the black. The second most common Malaysian license plates feature two black edge sections and a large white middle section. The second most common Indonesian plates feature an almost all black license plate with a vague semblance of white in the centre. Malay utility poles are often cylindrical shape with a wider base. They also commonly have a black, rectangle part-way up the pole. Malaysia has a large number of black and white striped poles. These are the standard poles that hold up road signs. Indonesia can have black and white striped poles but they are rather rare and not as ubiquitous as the Malaysian poles. In general, Malaysia looks richer than Indonesia. This entails having better maintained roads, more affluent cars and slightly richer houses. Malaysia also has many more road signs than Indonesia. Some Chinese characters often appear in Malaysia whilst they seldom appear in Indonesia. Malaysia is a very tropical country and palm trees are common as is thick, green, rain forest. The Malay Peninsula is more populous, has more cars on the roads and is more built-up than Borneo. The Malaysian territory on the island of Borneo is much more remote, has less cars, less people and has more vegetation. Malaysian shops will often have their address on them. Malaysian license plates have various black markings on them. The letters ‘Sdn Bhd’ appear on many Malaysian signs. Malaysia has distinctive, yellow, irregular hexagon shapes that denote road numbers. Malaysia has lots of these black and white guard rails. Like Indonesia, Malaysia can also have black and white curbs. Malaysia commonly has black rectangles with white lettering on their utility poles. These are only in the Malaysian mainland and never in Borneo. In Malaysian Borneo, some (a minority of) utility poles will have a white rectangle on them. Just like the black rectangle tells you that you are situated on mainland Malaysia, the white rectangle tells you that you are located on Malaysian Borneo. The most common utility poles on mainland Malaysia are cylindrical in shape and are thicker towards the base. Poles on the Malaysian part of Borneo are generally slightly thinner than poles on mainland Malaysia. Malaysia has many black and white striped poles. These are a rare feature around the world. Indonesia has some black and white striped poles too but they are much more common in Malaysia. Like much of the region, including Indonesia, Malaysia uses the yellow, diamond warning signs. The Acronym ‘AWAS’ commonly appears in Malaysia and signifies their road safety system. Malaysian bollards have two red rectangles on them. Some bollards have two gray rectangles on one side. Malaysian stop signs display the word ‘BERHENTI’. The Borneo part of Malaysia appears very remote, with few cars, few people and lots of vegetation. The area of Malaysia on the peninsula (around Kuala Lumpur) is more developed, has more cars and less vegetation. Trees known as oil palms are found in Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Thailand. Malaysian cars drive on the left, like much of the region, including Indonesia. Malay houses often have corrugated iron roofs that are triangular prism shaped. A large number of houses in Malaysia tend to have some form of vertical column as part of the house. This is a fairly unique feature that is rarely found in other countries. Like Indonesia, Malaysia’s most common road markings consist of white, continuous, edge lines and a dashed, white, centre line. Malaysia sometimes has double, white, continuous road lines. These are fairly rare around the rest of the world. Malaysia also sometimes has another fairly unique road feature - thick, yellow lines that run at 90 degrees to the road. The Malaysian state of Johor has yellow street name signs. Sometimes in Malaysia, you will see Chinese writing. This isn’t the dominant written language in Malaysia but it appears every now and then. The letters ‘a’ and ‘u’ are commonly found in a large number of Malay words. Malay is remarkably similar to Indonesian.

Malaysian licence plates are black and generally have two white sections. These are visible even when blurred.

Indonesian licence plates are also black, but they will have three white sections.

Malaysia frequently uses double white centre lines on its two-lane roads. It is the only Southeast Asian country to do so.

These thick yellow bars are also almost exclusive to Malaysia.

You can very rarely see similar patterns in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.

Electricity poles in Malaysia often have black or white stickers on them.

Sometimes you will also find red-and-white or red-and-blue stripes below the black sticker.

BERHENTI stop signs and BERI LALUAN yield signs are both road signs that are unique to Malaysia.

Malaysian bollards will often have the colours black, white, grey and red.

Hexagonal yellow highway shields are unique to Malaysia.

Malaysian kilometre markers have a unique white-and-blue colour scheme.

The Malay language uses the Latin script. It is very closely related to Indonesian and the two languages are practically indistinguishable for people who do not speak either.

In contrast to neighbouring Indonesia, Chinese characters are often seen in Malaysia as 24.6% of the Malaysian population is of Chinese descent.

Signposts in Malaysia almost always have black-and-white stripes.

Within Asia, these posts are also found in Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Make sure to check other clues before guessing.

Black-and-white curbs are commonly found in Malaysia.

Many other countries in Asia can also have black-and-white curbs.