Melaka and George Town became the first Malaysian cultural properties to be inscribed on the World Heritage list. Until 2008 Malaysia had managed to designate only two natural heritage sites, and both were not in peninsular Malaysia but on Borneo: the Gunung Mulu National Park and Kinabalu Park. A second cultural heritage site was inscribed in 2012, the Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley. Taking into consideration the fact that this site includes open-air archaeological excavations and caves from the Palaeolithic era, concentrated within the natural landscape along the Perak River, Melaka and George Town still represent the only cultural heritage locales in a living urban milieu.

The process of World Heritage designation follows a specific transnational order of action. First, a ‘State Party’ – to use the nomenclature agreed upon by countries that have ratified the World Heritage Convention – must prepare an inventory known as a ‘Tentative List’ with sites that will possibly, in the following five to ten years, be submitted for inscription. In this way, the State Party can decide to prepare a nomination file, or dossier, to be sent to the World Heritage Centre. The latter, with its headquarters in Paris, acts as the secretariat for all matters concerning the convention. Among its most important tasks, the World Heritage Centre organizes annual sessions of the World Heritage Committee and provides advice to the States Parties in the preparation of nominations.