The Sultan Abdul Samad Building is the most prominent colonial building located in Kuala Lumpur. It serves as a government building since its inception in 1897. It has often been related to the British colonialism in Malaysia.

Unlike the most British colonial architecture in Singapore, India or Australia, the British colonial architecture in Malaysia, or formerly known as Malaya, departed from the Neoclassical or British Victorian architecture. This was due to the fact that Malaya was a consisted of several Malay protected stated with heredity rulers, the Sultans.

 Front elevation view © Stefan Fussan | Wikimedia.org |  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
In order to appease the Malay Sultans, and also to impose the Malay-Islamic images to the people, the British architects had imparted the foreign architectural language, including the Mughal architecture from India. Sultan Abdul Samad Building is one of the many Mughal-inspired architecture built in the country.

Named after the former Sultan of Selangor, the building is noted for its clock tower, adorned with onion-shaped dome and built with masonry finishes. Other than the domes, the building facade is heavily decorated with a series of pointed arches, crenellations and pediments.

View from Independence Square with Victoria Fountain in the foreground © Earth | Wikimedia.org |   Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic
The elongated building, is a part of the classic British colonial city planning, with the main civic building facing a wide green space, clustered with with few other civic and public buildings, and connected to the main roads, rivers or railroads.

The building has been inscribed to the National Heritage status and now has been administered d by the Department of National Heritage. It has been used as a gallery space, and also the main avenue during the Independence Day Parade, combined together with the adjacent Independence Square during the 31st August every year.