Sabah Map

The Sabah state which is located on the Island of Borneo is also known as the second largest state in the whole of Malaysia. On the Island of Borneo, aside from the Sabah state, another state of Malaysia is also located right besides Sabah, this state is known as the Sarawak state. Besides Sarawak, Kalimantan of Indonesia is also located at the southern part of the Borneo Island. For being the second largest state in Malaysia, the Sabah state has a land area of roughly 72500 square kilometer. The estimated total populations of the Sabah state at the year 2000 are around 2449389 people. Although Sabah is the second largest state in Malaysia, the terrains within the Sabah state are mostly hills, forests and mountains. One of tallest mountains in the Southeast Asia region is also situated here in the central Sabah. For the administration of the Sabah state, the state capital of Sabah is the Kota Kinabalu district and in addition to that, there are an additional 22 administrative districts known as Beaufort, Beluran, Keningau, Kinabatangan, Kota Belud, Kota Marudu, Kuala Penyu, Kudat, Kunak, Lahad Datu, Nabawan, Papar, Penampang, Pitas, Ranau, Sandakan, Semporna, Sipitang, Tambunan, Tawau, Tenom and Tuaran. In the early days, the main economy of the Sabah state depends greatly on exporting tropical timber. However, as all of the natural resources are not abundant, the timber productions within the Sabah state started to deteriorate. Therefore because of this reason, the government of the Sabah state started to preserve the remaining rainforests and thus, palm oil has emerged since then as palm oil is a more sustainable resource. Aside from agricultural products such as palm oil, cacao and rubber, the tourism industries are also as important as agricultural products as it is the second largest contributor to the economy of the Sabah state. For tourism in the Sabah state, as the state itself has many wonderful natural resources such as tropical rainforests, lakes, beaches and as well as mountains, eco-tourism became one of the main attractions of the Sabah state.