Kota Kinabalu is often known as
K.K. within Malaysia and internationally. It is a major tourist destination and a popular gateway for travellers visiting Sabah and Borneo.
Kinabalu National Park is located about 90 kilometres from the city and there are many tourist attractions in and around the city. Kota Kinabalu is also one of the major industrial and commercial centres of
East Malaysia. These two factors combine to make Kota Kinabalu one of the fastest growing cities in Malaysia.
In the late 1800s, the
British North Borneo Company (BNBC) began to establish colonies throughout
North Borneo (now Sabah). In 1882, the Company founded a small settlement in the area known as
Gaya Bay which was already inhabited by the
Bajau people. The first settlement was on
Gaya Island(Pulau Gaya). In 1897, this first settlement was burned and destroyed by the indigenous Bajau freedom fighter led by
Mat Salleh.
After the rebellion, the Company decided to relocate the settlement to the more easily defended mainland opposite Pulau Gaya. A nearby fishing village named
Api-Api (see
Original names below), was the next settlement of the Company. This new location was then designated as the main harbour and port, as well as the terminus for the
North Borneo Railway. It was expanded and renamed
Jesselton, named after Sir Charles Jessel, the then Vice Chairman of the Company.
Eventually, Jesselton became a major trading post of North Borneo, dealing in
rubber,
rattan,
honey, and wax. The new railway was used to transport goods to Jesselton harbour. The Malay and Bajau uprisings during these times were not uncommon, and the Company worked to quell the long-standing threat of piracy in the region.
A bird's eye view of Kota Kinabalu from
Penampang.
Jesselton was razed by the retreating British early in World War II to prevent it from falling into the hands of the
Japanese. After the
Japanese takeover of Borneo, it was again renamed Api. Several rebellions against the
Japanese military administration took place in Api. One major rebellion occurred in 1943 by the group called
Kinabalu Guerrillas, consisting of local inhabitants. Japanese forces quelled the rebellion after its leader, Albert Kwok, was arrested and executed in 1944. At the later stages of the war, what remained of the town was destroyed again by
Allied bombings as part of the
Borneo Campaign in 1945, leaving only three buildings standing. The war in North Borneo ended with the official surrender of the Japanese 37th Army by Lieutenant General Baba Masao in
Labuan on September 10, 1945.
After the war, the British North Borneo Company returned to administer Jesselton but was unable to finance the huge costs of reconstruction. They gave control of North Borneo to the
British Crown in 1946. The new colonial government elected to rebuild Jesselton as the capital of North Borneo instead of
Sandakan, which had also been destroyed by the war.
When North Borneo together with Sarawak, Singapore & Federation of Malaya formed the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, the state became known as Sabah and Jesselton remained its capital. Jesselton was renamed Kota Kinabalu on September 30, 1968 and received official city status from the Malaysian government on February 2, 2000.
Etymology
Kota Kinabalu is named after
Mount Kinabalu, situated about 50 kilometres east-northeast of the city. Kinabalu derived from the name
Aki Nabalu meaning the "revered place of the dead", in which,
Aki means "ancestors" or "grandfather", and
Nabalu being a name for the mountain in the
Dusun language. There is also a source claiming that the term originated from
Ki Nabalu, where
Ki meaning "have" or "exist", and
Nabalu meaning "spirit of the dead".
Kota is a Malay word for a "fort", "town", or a "city". It is also used formally in a few other Malaysian towns and cities, for example,
Kota Bahru,
Kota Tinggi, and
Kota Kemuning. It could also be used informally to refer to any towns or cities. Henceforth, a direct translation of the name
Kota Kinabalu into English would be "City of Kinabalu" or "Kinabalu City".
Wendy Suart wrote in her book on
North Borneo,
The Lingering Eye, "there is in the [Sabah] State Museum a Dutch map of Borneo and the Celebes dated 1657 in which the settlement where Jesselton was to stand is clearly labelled Api Api. It may have some connection with the seaside tree with breathing roots that bears the same name. Another explanation is that the name Api Api is derived from the devastating fire which occurred in the city's early years ('Api' means 'fire' in the Malay language). In Chinese, the city is known as 'Api', which is the
Hakka pronunciation for 亚庇 ('Ya bi' in Mandarin Chinese).
Original names
Besides Jesselton, there has been a number of other claims as to the original name for Kota Kinabalu. The most popular, as mentioned above, is Api-Api, or sometimes simply Api, which is a Malay word meaning 'Fire'. It was apparently named as such by the mainly Bajau locals to denote the blazing of the British administrative office in Pulau Gaya instigated by Mat Salleh,as well as other blazing incidents normally perpetrated by pirates. There were claims however that it was actually named after a nearby river called Sungai Api-Api. Besides Api-Api, another suggested historical name was Deasoka, which roughly means "below the coconut tree" in the Bajau language.The Bajau locals purportedly used this name to refer to a village on the southern part of the city which was filled with coconut trees. Another name was Singgah Mata which literally mean "transit eye", but can be loosely translated as meaning "pleasing to the eye". It is a name purportedly given by fishermen from Pulau Gaya referring to the strip of land of what is today Kota Kinabalu city center. Today, all these names have been immortalised into names of streets or buildings around the city. Some examples are: Lintasan Deasoka, Api-Api Centre, Jalan Singgah Mata, and Jesselton Point.
Capital city
A rough map of Kota Kinabalu city and urban area..
Being the capital city of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu plays an important role in the political and economic welfare of the population in the entire state. It is the seat of the state government where almost all of their
ministries and
agencies are based. Most of the
Malaysian federal government agencies and departments are also located in Kota Kinabalu. The Sabah State Legislative Assembly is located at nearby Likas Bay. There are four
Members of Parliament (MPs) representing four
parliamentary constituencies in the city: Sepanggar (
P.171), Kota Kinabalu (
P.172), Putatan (
P.173), and Penampang (
P.174). The city also elects 9 representatives to the state legislature from the state assembly districts of Karambunai, Inanam, Likas, Api-Api, Luyang, Tanjung Aru, Petagas, Kepayan, and Moyog.
Local authority and city definition
The city is administered by
Dewan Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu (Kota Kinabalu City Hall). The current mayor of Kota Kinabalu is Datuk Illiyas Ibrahim. He became the second
mayor of the city after taking over the post from Datuk Abdul Ghani Rashid in 2006. The city obtained
city status on February 2, 2000, and prior to this it was administered by Majlis Perbandaran Kota Kinabalu (Kota Kinabalu Municipal Council).
The city is defined within the borders of what is the
district, formerly the
municipality, of Kota Kinabalu. With an area of 351 square kilometres, it is the smallest but the most populous district in Sabah. It encompasses
Tanjung Aru and
Kepayan in the south, up to
Telipok and
Sepanggar in the north. The urban expanse of the city however extends into the district of
Penampang on the south of the city border, which includes the towns of
Donggongon and
Putatan. The combined area of Kota Kinabalu (district) and the built up areas in Penampang can also be described as Kota Kinabalu (urban area). The district of Penampang has an area of 466 square kilometres, and is administered by Majlis Daerah Penampang (Penampang District Council).
On one end of the scale, Kota Kinabalu may sometimes only refer to, especially by local inhabitants, the city centre or
central business district, area near the sea facing Pulau Gaya. On the other end of the scale, it may also refer to the
metropolitan area which includes urban Kota Kinabalu, and the surrounding towns of
Papar and
Kinarut, in the south, and
Tuaran and
Tamparuli, in the north, being within its zone of influence.
