Northam Road, George Town

The Old Protestant Cemetery can be seen in this 1799 map of George Town.

Northam Road in the 1910s

Wawasan Open University now occupies the Homestead, one of the more majestic mansions along Northam Road.

BHL Tower at Northam Road also houses the Consulate-General of Japan in Penang.

Northam Road was originally named after Northam, Devon, in southwest England. It was officially renamed as Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah in the 1980s, in honour of the then King of Malaysia, Sultan Ahmad Shah, who visited Penang in 1982. Nonetheless, local Penangites continue to refer to the road by its colonial name, Northam Road. This is partly because the new name sounds unwieldy, but also reflects a strong conservatism among the locals, who view Penang's colonial history as part of their local identity.

MBf Tower is one of the skyscrapers along Northam Road, and also one of the tallest in Penang.

During the early years of British rule, British officers and other Europeans were buried within the Old Protestant Cemetery. These included Captain Francis Light, who founded Penang in 1786 and died in 1794. At the time, Northam Road had yet to come into existence and the area was simply known as the 'North Beach'.

Throughout the 19th century, Northam Road evolved into the suburban area of choice for wealthy Europeans, who began building bungalows along the road. The Europeans later moved out of Northam Road for greener, leafy neighbourhoods further inland, leaving the bungalows along the road to be snapped up by Chinese businessmen, who in turn constructed more elegant bungalows along the road. Many of the wealthy Chinese who resided along Northam Road, such as Yeap Chor Ee, Loh Boon Siew and Lim Lean Teng, also chose European names for their residences, reflecting the upper-class preferences for all things European.[3]

In 1980, Northam Court, a 16-storey luxurious condominium project under construction was demolished just before completion when it began tilting and was at risk of collapse.[4][5]

Since the 1990s, the mushrooming of commercial skyscrapers along Northam Road has turned the coastal thoroughfare into the city's second Central Business District, along with Gurney Drive.[1] The construction of these skyscrapers have been made possible as the road technically lies outside the UNESCO World Heritage Site that covers most of the city centre.

• Old Protestant Cemetery
• Kedah House, the residence of the Sultan of Kedah
• Homestead, formerly the residence of Yeap Chor Ee and now part of Wawasan Open University

• List of roads in George Town
• Architecture of Penang
• George Town CBD