SANDAKAN

Previously the capital of Sabah, the town of Sandakan faces the Sulu Sea and is steeps in historical sites and a gateway to many eco-tourism destinations.

The name "Sandakan" derives from the Suluk word "sanda" meaning to pawn and "kan" being the suffix. So "Sandakan" means the place that was pawned. There is no recorded history however, to tell us what or if anything was pawned.

In the early 1870s, a Scottish adventurer by the name of William Clarke Cowie, delivered guns and ammunitions to the Sultan of Sulu. He did this for protecting the territory of the Sultan against the Spanish conquerors. In return, Cowie was granted permission by the Sultan to set up base on Pulau Timbang, in Sandakan Bay, where a small Suluk village existed. Cowie called his base "Sandakan".

In 1883, the British North Borneo Chartered Company moved its capital from Kudat to Sandakan. Sandakan became a bustling town then. Sandakan in fact, has an automatic telephone exchanged installed in 1923, even earlier than Shanghai and Hong Kong. Allied bombings towards the end of World War II nearly flattened the town. In 1946, the capital was moved to Jesselton which later changed its name in 1968, to Kota Kinabalu.

After WW II, Sandakan was rebuilt. Felled by the timber logging years, by early 1980's, Sandakan is said to have the greatest concentration of millionaires in the world! Today, it is known more as the gateway to nature's most prolific treasures in Borneo.

Click the links on the top-left page (DESTINATIONS menu) to see various places of interest to see while at Sandakan