Banggi Island

Banggi Island (Malay: Pulau Banggi) is located in the Kudat Division of Sabah in Malaysia. With an area of 440.7 square kilometres (170.2 sq mi) separated from the Sabah mainland by the South Banggi Channel,^[1] it is the largest island fully in the country followed by Bruit Island of Sarawak, Langkawi Island of Kedah, and Penang Island of Penang.^[2] Located off the northern coast of Sabah near Marudu Bay, the highest elevation on the island is the Senambung Hill (Malay: Bukit Senambung) at 572 metres (1,877 ft).^[3][4][5] As of 2016, the island has an estimated population of 30,000.^[2] Limbuak is one of the main settlements on the northern islands, with other settlements including neighbouring island of Balambangan, Dagotan, Kapitangan, Karakit, Laksian, Lok Agong, Loktohog, Malawali, Maliu, Palak, Sabor, Sebogoh, and Tigabu.^[6] The nearest neighbouring Philippine island is Mangsee Islands.^[7]

The origin of the island name of Banggi is borrowed from the local dialect of Bonggi Dusun, which carries the meaning of bangkai (corpse).^[8] In the past, visitors on the island would usually find human corpses strung up on trees since the practice of immediately burying the dead was non-existent among the earliest island inhabitants.^[9] Based on local folklore, the earliest island inhabitants would usually leave their dead relatives on trees to parch them to the bones, which were then collected for burial. In the modern days, the inhabitants are more used to calling the island "Bonggi".^[9] The word "Banggi" is also used among the islander as a curse word as in the phrase of "Banggi nu!" which are translated as drop dead in the English language.^[8]

The island was once under the rule of the Sultanate of Brunei, as were much of the areas of northern Borneo before the arrival of European powers.^[10] The Bruneian Sultanate used to exact tribute from the coastal people, whilst the interior was free from any thalassocratic control.^[10] Around 1704, Brunei ceded the northern part of Borneo from Kimanis northward, including the islands of Palawan, Banggi, and Balambangan, to the Sultanate of Sulu as a reward for their help during the Brunei Civil War.^[10][11][12]

In 1759, Alexander Dalrymple, a Scottish geographer, hydrographer, and publisher, was dispatched by the East India Company (EIC) to establish trade relations with the Sulu Sultanate, where he signed a treaty of alliance and commerce with Sultan Bantilan of Sulu in early January 1761.^[10]

The following year on 12 September 1762, Sultan Bantilan held the council of the chief people at Sulu, in which the island of Balambangan was granted to the EIC. Within the same year, Dalrymple established a factory at Banggi to process spice obtained from the Bugis working in the Moluccas, although the plan never materialised.^[13] The first direct contact between the indigenous islanders of Bonggi Dusun and the English was made on 23 January 1763 when he took the island for the EIC and hoisted the British flag. He returned to Sulu in 1764 to renegotiate the agreement, and a new cession was made by the Sulu Sultanate on 2 July 1764, which gave the EIC exclusive rights on the islands of Balambangan and Banggi.^[13] By 1773, the British began establishing a settlement with John Herbert as Chief Resident, accompanied by Captain Thomas Forrest, while Dalrymple was dismissed by the EIC due to some disagreements with the company authority.^[13] Herbert, however, cheated the EIC out of large sums of money and quarrelled with local Sulu chiefs, causing the Sulus to regret their deals with the EIC and causing the British garrison to be attacked by the Sulus, with the Balambangan settlement being destroyed by Sulu pirates in March 1775.^[13] Most of the British survivors fled to Brunei, and by 6 July 1775, the British returned to Banggi to reclaim the remains left behind by the Sulus.^[13]

In 1803, the EIC dispatched Robert Farquhar to resettle the Balambangan Island although the British withdrew in 1805 due to the inability to defend their post.^[14] Further in 1823 and in the 1840s, the British considered resettling both Banggi and Balambangan although the British later establish the Crown Colony of Labuan instead in 1848.^[14] Following the American Navy's consideration to built a naval depot in Banggi as well as the Kingdom of Italy's attempt to acquire the island from the Sultanate of Brunei in 1870 to establish a penal settlement, the British to established the protectorate of North Borneo through the North Borneo Chartered Company in 1881.^[14] The Germans also began to get involved in commercial activities on the island with the establishment of a tobacco estate at Limbuak Darat in 1884. By 1885, the British surveyed the proposed town of Mitford, which is the English name of Karakit or Kerahid by the Bonggi Dusun.^[14]

Since the establishment of North Borneo, the British administered Banggi Island directly from Kudat District with the only administration building on the island having been a police quarters at Midford established in 1887.^[15] The British begen establishing schools in the 1950s to address islander literacy, with further administration infrastructure being established throughout the foundation of the Malaysian federation in 1963.^[16]

In 2014, a new township was proposed to be built on the island.^[17] The island has also been part of the gazetted area of Tun Mustapha Marine Park since 2016.^[18] A district office was constructed in the town of Karakit in the 2010s, covering Balambangan Island, Manawali Cape Island, and Tigabu Island. Other public infrastructure including a government rest house, hotel, Royal Malaysia Police station, health clinic, and homestay are operated by the islanders.^[19]

With the island's location in the northernmost part of Sabah, it hosts a variety of biodiversity. There are 239 species of mangrove trees on the island,^[20] including 39 species of mammals with 20 are reported for the first time in 1995.^[21] Smaller animal species such as Tupaia gracilis, Exilisciurus exilis, and Hipposideros dyacorum are present on the island, and its fauna exhibits a characteristic of land-bridge island faunas.^[21] The –120 metre bathymetric line in the north of the island divides the fauna of Bornean species with the fauna of Palawan species of the Philippine Islands.^[21]

The island hosts a number of conservation sites, with the southern tip of the island, known as the Wak-Wak, containing both primary lowland forest and mangrove forest, which is part of the Karakit Forest Reserve.^[22] At the southeast part of Banggi Peak, known as Kalangkaman Site, which is part of the Banggi Forest Reserve, are a variety of tree and plant species, including abundant mosses and epiphytes covering the trees at 350 metres (1,150 ft) elevation,^[23] and at the summit, most of the trees are widely spaced and dense vegetation of various species of ferns and grasses, pitcher plants, as well as orchids.^[24] The eastern part named Sabor covered an area with logged forest, with scattered open grassland as a result of shifting cultivation.^[23] The Lok Tohok in the southern part is covered with mixed grasses and old unmanaged coconut plantations with a large remnant of forest trees. The southernmost tip of Karakit hosts a large mangrove forest area.^[23]

The main ethnicities on the island are Bonggi Dusun, Balabak/Molbog, Rungus, Bajau of Kagayan and Ubian, Suluk, and several other islander minority including non-indigenous of Indonesians and Filipinos timber workers as well as non-Sabahans working at the Malaysian Army camp post.^[1] The main spoken mother tongue is Bonggi, Balabak/Molbog, Rungus, Bajau/Ubian and Suluk, with the official Malay language understood by most.^[10] The main islander ethnic language of Bonggi contains many English loanwords despite minimal contact with English speakers.^[8]

The current main economic activity is fishery and farming,^[25] with the presence of palm oil, rubber, and coconut plantations, with further potential of ecotourism and aquaculture.^[26][27] During the British North Borneo administration, chromite was discovered by the British in 1909,^[28] and drilling was conducted by Borneo Mining Ltd., although there have been no further significant mining activities ever since on the resources.^[29]

There have been proposals for the establishment of Banggi Island as part of the country's digital free trade zone (DFTZ) and subsequently as the "Golden Gateway" to both the Indonesian and Philippine markets, which are also part of the Brunei Darussalam–Indonesia–Malaysia–Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA).^[30] The island has been estimated by the BIMP-EAGA Council to have the potential to produce over 1.5 GWh of annual renewable electricity through the conversion of palm oil mill effluent and other biomass by-products into biogas, which further could reduce its overdependence on diesel-based electricity generation.^[31]

• List of islands of Malaysia

• Colonial Geology and Mineral Resources: The Quarterly Bulletin of the Colonial Geological Surveys. H.M. Stationery Office. 1957.
• Mining Journal. Mining Journal. 1963.
• Huxley, Michael (1968). The Geographical Magazine. Geographical Press.
• Wright, Leigh R. (1 July 1988). The Origins of British Borneo. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 978-962-209-213-6.
• Boutin, Michael E. (1994). "The sociohistorical context of English borrowings in Bonggi" (PDF). Paper Prepared for Presentation to the Borneo Research Council Third Biennial International Conference. Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 July 2025 – via SIL Global.
• Fieldiana: Zoology. Chicago Natural History Museum. 1996.
• Md. Nor, Shukor (1996). "The Mammalian Fauna on the Islands at the Northern Tip of Sabah, Borneo" (PDF). Fieldiana Zoology. 83. Chicago, Illinois, United States: 1–91. ISSN 0015-0754. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2025 – via SciSpace.
• Teh, Louise; Cabanban, Annadel S.; Sumaila, Ussif Rashid (2005). "The reef fisheries of Pulau Banggi, Sabah: A preliminary profile and assessment of ecological and socio-economic sustainability". Fisheries Research. 76 (3): 359–367. doi:10.1016/j.fishres.2005.07.009.
• Teh, Lydia; Cabanban, Annadel S. (2007). "Planning for sustainable tourism in southern Pulau Banggi: An assessment of biophysical conditions and their implications for future tourism development". Journal of Environmental Management. 85 (4): 999–1008. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2006.11.005.
• Sheldon, Frederick H (2015). "GAZETTEER AND SITE--BASED HISTORY OF THE ORNITHOLOGY OF SABAH, MALAYSIAN BORNEO". Occasional papers of the Museum of Natural History the University of Kansas. 86. Lawrence, Kansas, United States: 1–91. Archived from the original on 11 July 2025 – via ResearchGate.
• Mojiol, Andy R.; Salleh, Nurul N. (2017). "Mangrove Species Diversity and Structure at Kudat and Banggi Island, Sabah". Journal of Tropical Resources and Sustainable Science. 86: 27–32. eISSN 2462-2389. Archived from the original on 11 July 2025 – via Open Journal Systems, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan.
• Rosalam, Sarbatly (7 February 2020). Membrane Technology for Water and Wastewater Treatment in Rural Regions. IGI Global. ISBN 978-1-7998-2647-7.

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