Malay Singaporeans (, Jawi: ) are a local ethnic group in Singapore. Recognised as the indigenous people of the country, the group is defined as Singaporean who is of Malay ethnicity or, whose ancestry originates from the Malay world. Local Malay Singaporeans constitute 15% of the country's citizens, making them the second largest ethnic group in Singapore after Chinese Singaporeans. Prior to the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles, the Malays were the majority living on the island under the Johor Sultanate. From the 19th century until World War II, the Malays enjoyed favourable treatment and disproportionate employment to colonial governmental posts; this was concurrent with a sharp increase in the Malay population due to immigration to Singapore from the other part of Malay Peninsula, Brunei and the Indonesian archipelago such as Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi. Though coming from various backgrounds from the Malay world, many are nonetheless tied together by a similar culture, language and religion. Singaporean Malays are active in all spheres of Singaporean culture and society, with independent representation in areas such as media, politics and sport. History of the Malay kings of Singapore The seventeenth-century Malay chronicle, the Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals, tells of the founding of a great trading city on the island of Temasek in 1299 AD by a prince from Palembang. Palembang was then the capital of the diminishing Srivijaya Empire. The prince, Sri Tri Buana, (also known as Sang Nila Utama) was said to be a descendant of Alexander the Great and an Indian princess called Shahru Al-Bariyah. Legend states that he renamed the city Singapura ("lion city") after sighting a strange beast that he took to be a lion, although there is no real historical evidence of this. In the mid-14th century, Singapura suffered raids by the expanding Javanese Majapahit Empire to the south and the emerging Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya to the north, both claiming the island as a vassal state at several points in time. Around 1388, the ruler of Palembang, Parameswara, came to Singapore to flee from Majapahit control. He murdered the king and seized power, but it was a futile act. The Srivijaya Empire, already in decline, finally met its end when Majapahit attacked its capital Palembang in 1391. In 1396, Majapahit or Ayutthaya forces drove out Parameswara, who fled northward and founded kingdom of Malacca in 1400. When the Portuguese captured Malacca in 1511, the last