Kota Kinabalu

The coast here was part of the Brunei sultanate's sphere, with Bajau and Kadazan-Dusun communities on the shore and the rivers, before the British North Borneo Chartered Company took over the administration of the territory in 1881. An early company settlement on Gaya Island was burned in 1897 during Mat Salleh's revolt, and the company moved to the mainland opposite, founding a new township in 1899 that was named Jesselton after Sir Charles Jessel, the company's vice-chairman. A railway was pushed inland to Beaufort and Tenom, and the port shipped rubber, tobacco and timber.

The Second World War destroyed the town. Japanese forces occupied North Borneo from 1942, the Jesselton revolt of 1943 was put down with heavy reprisals, and Allied bombing in 1945 left almost nothing standing apart from the Atkinson Clock Tower and a few other structures. When North Borneo became a British crown colony in 1946 the capital was moved from ruined Sandakan to Jesselton, and the town was rebuilt on reclaimed ground along the shore.

North Borneo joined Malaysia in 1963 as Sabah, and Jesselton was renamed Kota Kinabalu in 1967 after the mountain inland; it was declared a city in 2000. Since then it has grown quickly along the coastal strip and up the hills behind, with land reclamation for the waterfront, hotels and shopping centres in the centre, and housing estates spreading north and south. The city's growth has been accompanied by long-running arguments over Sabah's share of federal revenue, its rights under the 1963 agreement and the status of large migrant and stateless communities.

Kota Kinabalu is the meeting point of Sabah's communities. Kadazan-Dusun families dominate Penampang and the districts inland, Bajau and Suluk communities the coast and the water villages, Chinese Sabahans — mostly of Hakka descent — the shophouse trades, and Malay, Murut, Rungus, Filipino and Indonesian populations add to the mix. Christians, Muslims and others live side by side, mixed marriages are common, and the city's calendar carries Kaamatan, Chinese New Year, Christmas and Hari Raya in turn.

Kaamatan, the harvest festival held through May, is the state's great celebration, honouring the rice spirit with ceremonies, sumazau dancing, rice wine and the Unduk Ngadau pageant, and Penampang on the city's edge is its centre. Malaysia Day on 16 September, marking the formation of the federation in 1963, is observed here with a seriousness it does not always have in the peninsula.

Sabahans see themselves as distinct from peninsular Malaysia, speak a relaxed local Malay full of its own slang, and use English easily. The tone of the city is informal: coffee shops, markets, football and fishing, and a weekend habit of heading for the islands or up into the hills. Mount Kinabalu, visible from the city on clear mornings, is sacred to the Kadazan-Dusun as the resting place of the dead, and is treated as more than scenery.

About 500,000 people lived in the city at the 2020 census, and some 730,000 in the wider area, which spreads along the coast from Tanjung Aru through Likas to Inanam and inland to Penampang and Putatan. It is the largest city in Sabah and the state's centre of government, trade, health care and education, with the university on the coast north of the centre.

Work is in government, retail, construction, transport, the port and tourism, with palm oil, timber and oil and gas shaping the state economy beyond the city. Sabah remains one of the poorer Malaysian states despite those resources, and the gap between the coastal city and the rural interior is wide. Large migrant and stateless communities, many of Filipino or Indonesian background, live in the water villages and outer settlements, and their status is a permanent political question.

Daily life starts early, with markets before dawn and offices from eight, and slows in the afternoon heat before the seafront fills again in the evening. Traffic on the coastal road, water supply interruptions and power cuts are familiar complaints, as is the cost of housing near the centre. Weekends mean the tamu markets in the surrounding towns, church or mosque, and boats out to the islands.

Kota Kinabalu eats seafood first. The waterfront markets display the day's catch — prawns, squid, grouper, crab, clams and the sought-after tiger prawns — to be grilled over charcoal, steamed with ginger and soy, or fried with butter and curry leaves, and eaten at long communal tables. Chinese kitchens dominate that trade, as they do the city's noodles.

The local dishes are worth seeking out. Tuaran mee, named after the town to the north, is a springy hand-made egg noodle fried with char siu, egg and greens; ngiu chap is a clear beef noodle soup with sliced beef, tripe and tendon; and sang nyuk mien, pork noodle soup, is a standard breakfast. From the Kadazan-Dusun come hinava, raw fish cured in lime juice with ginger, shallots, chilli and grated bambangan seed; pinasakan, fish braised with sour fruit and turmeric; linopot, rice mixed with tapioca or yam and wrapped in leaves; and tapai and lihing, the rice wines drunk at festivals.

Coffee is a local point of pride: Tenom coffee, roasted in the interior, and the thick local kopi served in shophouses from Gaya Street outwards. Sabah tea grows near Ranau, and vegetables and milk come down from Kundasang. Street snacks include sticky rice roasted in bamboo, grilled chicken wings sold by the dozen at Tanjung Aru, and the fruit of the season — durian, langsat, bambangan and, briefly, the wild red-skinned tarap.