Kunak ( ms, Pekan Kunak) is the capital of the
Kunak District in the
Tawau Division
Tawau Division ( ms, Bahagian Tawau) is one of the five administrative sub-divisions of Sabah, Malaysia. It occupies a total of 14,905 square kilometres or 20% of Sabah's territory. The main towns include the capital of Tawau, Lahad Datu, Kun ...
of
Sabah
Sabah () is a state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indonesia to the south. The Federal Territory ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
. Its population was estimated to be around 13,823 in 2010.
The population consists mainly of
Bajau
The Sama-Bajau include several Austronesian ethnic groups of Maritime Southeast Asia. The name collectively refers to related people who usually call themselves the Sama or Samah (formally A'a Sama, "Sama people"); or are known by the exonym ...
and
Bugis
The Bugis people (pronounced ), also known as Buginese, are an ethnicity—the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi (the others being Makassar and Toraja), in the south-western province of Sulawesi ...
peoples. There is also a sizeable
Chinese minority, involved in running many of the shops in downtown Kunak as well as the planting of oil palms in the outskirts.
Education
Kunak has three main secondary schools: SMK Kunak Jaya, SMK Kunak and SMK Madai. It is also home to a Chinese primary school, SRJK(C) Pai Sheng, and several Malay-medium primary schools including SK Kunak 1, SK Kunak Jaya and SK Ladang Binuang. A resettlement scheme for
Cocos Islanders is situated a few kilometres away, near the Giram Oil Palm Estate (run by Sime Darby Berhad). A jetty is situated about five km from the town, in an area named Pengkalan Kunak. A single road lined by wooden shophouses (possibly a squatter colony) leads to the jetty and wet market. In 2002, a 76-bed government hospital was built in the town. At around the same time, a new highway linking Kunak to the town of
Semporna was also opened.
Gallery
File:Kunak Sabah TownViews-02.jpg, One of the old shoplots in Kunak.
File:Kunak Sabah SimeDarbyPalmoilStorage-01.jpg, Sime Darby
Sime Darby Berhad () is a Malaysian trading conglomerate. Its core businesses operate and serve in the industrial, motors and logistics sectors as well as the healthcare, and insurance segments.
Background
The modern Sime Darby Berhad corp ...
palm oil storage tanks in Kunak.
File:Sunset in Kunak.jpg, Sunset in Kunak
References
External links
Kunak District
Towns in Sabah
{{Sabah-geo-stub