Gurney Drive, George Town

5°26′11.63″N 100°18′45.2″E / 5.4365639°N 100.312556°E / 5.4365639; 100.312556

Gurney Drive
Malay: Persiaran Gurney
Chinese: 新关仔角 / 新關仔角
Tamil: கர்னி டிரைவ்
Maintained byPenang Island City Council
LocationGeorge Town
West end
East end
Construction
Inauguration1934
PERSIARAN GURNEY
Gurney Drive10250 P. PINANG

Gurney Drive is a popular seafront promenade within the city of George Town in the Malaysian state of Penang. The road is also famous for the street cuisine at the seafront's hawker centre and has been listed as one of the 25 best streets worldwide to visit by the Australian travel magazine, The Traveler.[1][2] In addition, Gurney Drive has become part of George Town's Central Business District due to the mushrooming of commercial properties and shopping malls.[3]

Previously known as the New Coast Road, it was completed in 1936 along what was then known as the North Beach and renamed in 1952 after Sir Henry Gurney, British High Commissioner in Malaya (1950–1951), who was assassinated by the guerrillas of the Malayan Communist Party during the Malayan Emergency.[4]

Over the years, the beaches along Gurney Drive have largely been lost to coastal erosion. A land reclamation project at Seri Tanjong Pinang has reversed the erosion, leading to the accretion of silt and mud off Gurney Drive. Mangrove saplings have sprouted in the mud, which is now frequented by egrets and other birds as well as mudskippers.

As of 2023, the shoreline off Gurney Drive is being reclaimed for the purpose of creating a public recreational park named Gurney Bay.[5]

Dragon boat racing in 1986
Eastern end with casuarina
Sunrise, one of the first highrises on Gurney Drive
Gurney Bay is a public park created from reclaimed land off Gurney Drive.
  1. ^ "Gurney Drive listed among best streets to visit around the world". www.thesundaily.my. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  2. ^ Kim, Soo (2017-03-20). "The 25 streets around the world every traveller needs to visit". Traveller. Retrieved 2017-03-22.
  3. ^ "Penang DAP rep: Put all projects in Gurney Drive on hold". 2015-05-22. Retrieved 2016-11-27.
  4. ^ "The story of Penang's Gurney Drive". 2007-07-24.
  5. ^ "Penang's Gurney Drive bund turns brown waters jade green". AsiaOne. Archived from the original on November 11, 2016. Retrieved 2016-11-27.

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