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Sabah is one of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Situated on the north-east of the island, Sabah is smaller than its sister state, Sarawak. The southern part of the island called Kalimantan belongs to neighbour country Indonesia. The state capital is Kota Kinabalu.

It was taken over by the British North Borneo Company in 1881, and became a protectorate of the British Empire with internal affairs still administered by the company in 1888. In 1946 the Company's rule ended and it became the colony of British North Borneo until it was admitted into the Malaysian federation in 1963.

See Demographics of Malaysia for some details about the population.

1 Tourism

Sabah is a frequent tourist destination. Its most popular tourist destinations are:

• several huge caves, populated with millions of swallows and/or bats, such as the Gomantong cave
• Southeast Asia's highest mountain, KinabaluSituated in Malaysia, Mount Kinabalu is Southeast Asia's third highest mountain behind Hkakabo Razi in Myanmar and Puncak Jaya in Indonesia, at 4101 m above sea level. The main peak of the mountain can be climbed by a person of normal health, and requires.
• a large number of excellent locations for scuba divingSCUBA is an acronym for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus . These initials likely originated in the US Navy to refer to US commando frogman's rebreathers. As with radar, the acronym has become so familiar that capitalisation is often omitted., including the famous island of Sipadan .
• Another famous city of the state is Sandakan , the City of Nature. Major attractions include the Orang Utan sanctuary Sepilok , the Labuk Probocis Centre , and the largest crocodile farm of Borneo.

2 Philippine Claim

The PhilippinesThe Republic of the Philippines is an island nation consisting of an archipelago of 7,107 islands, lying in the tropical western Pacific Ocean about 100 kilometers southeast of mainland Asia. Spain (1521-1898) and the United States (1898-1946), colonized claims the whole of Sabah as part of the country's territory, based upon the Sultanate of BruneiThe Sultanate of Brunei more commonly referred to as Brunei Darussalam or simply Brunei is an oil-rich country located on the island of Borneo, in southeast Asia. Apart from its coastline with the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by Malaysia.'s cession of its north-east territories to the Sultanate of SuluFor the Star Trek character, see Hikaru Sulu. Sulu is an island province of the Philippines located in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Its capital is Jolo and occupies the middle group of islands of the Sulu Archipelago, between Basilan a in 1704, because of military assitance given by the latter to the former.

Malaysia insists that Sabah is under the sovereignty of Malaysia based on the fact that Baron von Overbeck and Alfred Dent secured agreements with the Brunei Sultanate on December 29, 1877 and the Sulu Sultanate on January 22, 1878, both sultanates consenting to the transfer of all sovereignty over the territory that is known as Sabah today. The sovereignty was then transferred to the British Crown on July 15, 1946, and ceded to Malaysia on September 16, 1963.

Malaysian control was further strenghtened by two referendums: the first facilitated by the Cobbold Commission , from February to April 1962 and the second before the formation of Malaysia in September 1963. Both referendums recorded 70% of Sabahan population voting for Sabah to be part of Malaysia. Sabah's position within Malaysia was reinforced by the ruling made by the International Court of JusticeThe International Court of Justice (known colloquially as the World Court is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Established in 1945, its main functions are to settle disputes submitted to it by states and to give advisory opinions on lega that Pulau Sipadan and Pulau Linggitan came under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of Malaysia rather than Indonesia.