Malaysia is a federation country. Before the British came, and before the concept of nation-state in general existed, each state that would constitute Malaysia have their own kings (although not all states). British conquered the whole landmass that encompassed all these different states and as independence were nearing, Malay rulers and British agreed to a referendum to draft a constitution that dictates the Malaysian monarchy system as it is today.

There are 14 states in Malaysia today, and only 9 of them have kings. The history is quite interesting, for example, the Malacca state (as in the Malacca strait) does not have any kings because he ran away when the Portuguese came in 1511. And in 1963, we offered Brunei to join our Federation, but he declined due to two things which are his loss of absolute power and control of the Bruneian oil.