Spatial Evolution of Chinese Native-Place Association Buildings from the Perspective of Chinese Migrant Subgroups: Evidence from Malacca, Penang, and Singapore

Chinese native-place association buildings are important public buildings and built heritage of overseas Chinese communities, organized around migrant subgroups. Taking Melaka, Penang, and Singapore as cases, this article constructs a diachronic H-GIS database through field investigations and documentary research, and applies kernel density estimation (KDE), the mean nearest neighbor index (MNI), and the intergroup proximity ratio (R) to examine the urban distribution of these buildings and intergroup spatial relationships. In all three cities, association buildings were long anchored in port-commercial spaces and historic districts yet followed different trajectories: single-core continuity with local expansion in Melaka, north–south dual-core continuity in Penang, and postwar relocation from Chinatown to Geylang in Singapore. In the nineteenth century, different dialect-based migrant subgroups exhibited varying degrees of spatial segregation. From the twentieth century onward, association locations no longer strictly followed early dialect-based districts, and cross-subgroup juxtaposition within the same urban areas increased. Comparison across the three cities identifies three main factors shaping these layouts: port-commercial nodes, changing dialect-group boundaries, and urban expansion and renewal. The findings indicate that the heritage value of Chinese native-place associations lies not only in individual buildings, but also in their role as an urban heritage system recording interactions among urban development, identity, and community organization over time in overseas Chinese society.