The modern history of Perak begins with the fall of the Malacca Sultanate.

Raja Muzaffar Shah, (the eldest son of the last Sultan of Melaka, Sultan Mahmud Shah) flees the Portuguese conquest of 1511 and establishes his own dynasty on the banks of the Sungai Perak (Perak River) in 1528.

Being rich in tin ore deposits, the dominion is under almost continuous threat from outsiders.