KL Sentral is the largest railway station in Malaysia, and also in Southeast Asia from 2001 to 2021, before Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal in Bangkok, Thailand was completed.

KL Sentral refers to the entire 290,000 square metres (3,100,000 sq ft) of development built on the former Keretapi Tanah Melayu marshalling yard in Brickfields.

The development includes the transport hub, hotels, office towers, condominiums and shopping malls and was expected to be completed in 2015.

Kuala Lumpur Sentral station stands on the site of the former Malayan Railway's marshalling yard called the Central Railroad Repair Shops.

In the Second World War during the Japanese occupation of Malaya, the yard was the target of the Allies' 1945 bombing of Kuala Lumpur.

In 1994, with the objective of enhancing Kuala Lumpur city's public transport, the Government of Malaysia awarded a contract to a consortium to transform 72 acres (290,000 m2) at the old railway marshalling yard into a modern transit hub within a self-contained urban development.

The consortium, led by Malaysian Resources Corp Bhd (MRCB), appointed architect Kisho Kurokawa and Associates, who also designed the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), to design the master plan for the entire development.

[2] In early August 2019, KL Sentral was one of the locations affected by two online bomb threats posted on Twitter; the other being the Russian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

These threats were posted via a hacked account by an individual calling himself "limzhengyan"; as a result the Malaysian police carried out a search on those locations and determined that the threats were hoaxes, although coincidentally on the same day an incomplete improvised explosive device was found at the Bukit Damansara area.

The partnership is part of a five-year station naming rights agreement between Prasarana Integrated Development and redONE, the largest mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in ASEAN.

The developer intends that KL Sentral will ultimately be the business and financial hub of Kuala Lumpur.

Tower C was built by Quill Realty Sdn Bhd and sold to Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM) for its corporate headquarters.

Standing on 9.3 acres (38,000 m2), the main building has a gross floor area of 500,000 square feet (46,000 m2) and the specifications were based on passenger projections up to the year 2020, which was when Malaysia aspired to be a fully developed nation.

The station has a parking lot for visitors and people working around the KL Sentral area.

[10] KL City Air Terminal is located at the eastern and western ends of the station building and was opened on 14 April 2002 together with the 6 KLIA Ekspres.

Designed as an "Airport Terminal in the City", KL CAT is an IATA-indexed station and is assigned with the IATA code XKL.

As of October 2023, passengers flying Malaysia Airlines and Batik Air can check-in their baggage at KL CAT before boarding a KLIA Ekspres train to Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

The completion of the overhead bridge now enables customers to travel between KL Sentral and the monorail station safely and conveniently.

[11][12][13] The station uses the Spanish solution, having one rail line with a platform on each side, for passengers embarking and disembarking the train separately.

[14] Lot D consists of two 55-storey residential towers called The Sentral Residences that overlooks the Lake Gardens and the city.