The District prides
itself as the most multinational, multiracial, multicultural
District as it covers, as far as the Grand Lodge of Scotland is
concerned, the whole of the ASEAN region. It has currently under
its jurisdiction Lodges in Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah & Sarawak), Singapore and Thailand. At one time it also included the
Lodges in the countries of Indonesia, Brunei & Laos, where the
Lodges are currently in darkness. It thus theoretically,
encompasses a region of 3 million square kilometers and covers a
population of over 300 million.
The District Grand Lodge of the Middle East was consecrated in Kuala Lumpur on
20 October 1916 to bring under a local banner, the then three (3)
operative Scottish Lodges in British Malaya, namely Lodge Scotia No. 1003
(Penang), Lodge Tullibardine in the East No. 1118 (Kuala Lumpur),
and Lodge Malaya No. 1146 (Klang).
It was called Middle East for in the early nineteenth century,
anything east of India but not in the Far East (Hong Kong, China & Japan) was the Middle East. In the twentieth century, the
term Middle East has become associated with the region that was
then known as the Near East. The Lodges in the region however, do
not wish to the change the name, as it has grown on them by usage
and by tradition.
The Lodges in the District are spread in a wide range of cities
in the region: