Batu Gajah

Batu Gajah is a town in the state of Perak, Malaysia, and the seat of Kinta District, which it shares with the surrounding rural land along the Kinta River. It is run by the Batu Gajah District Council, once called the Kinta West District Council, and its population is recorded at about 133,000 people. The name means elephant rock in Malay and is usually traced to two large boulders along the river that were thought to resemble elephants. The town grew out of the tin mining of the Kinta Valley, which drew Chinese and Indian settlers and left the area with a mixed population and a heritage of tin dredges, a courthouse dating from 1892 and one of the oldest prisons in the country. Kellie's Castle, an unfinished mansion begun by a Scottish planter, stands nearby, and the local landmarks also include a long established government school founded in 1907. In recent years the area has attracted railway works and a new highway link to the Ipoh to Lumut road.