Population
The total population of East Malaysia in 2010 is estimated to be 6 million (3.5 million in Sabah and 2.5 million in Sarawak), which represents roughly 20% of the population of Malaysia. Significant amount of the population of East Malaysia today reside in towns and cities. The largest city and urban center is Kuching, which is also the capital of Sarawak and has a population of over 600,000 inhabitants. Kota Kinabalu is the second largest city and one of the most important cities in East Malaysia. Both Kuching and Kota Kinabalu together with Miri are the only three places with city status in East Malaysia. Other important towns include Sandakan and Tawau in Sabah and Sibu and Bintulu in Sarawak.
The earliest inhabitants of East Malaysia are the Dayak people and other related ethnic groups such as the Dusun people. These indigenous inhabitants form a significant portion of the population of East Malaysia, however they do not represent the majority population. There are significant migration into East Malaysia and Borneo from many parts of the Malay Archipelago since hundreds of years ago, including from Java, Lesser Sunda Islands, Sulawesi and Sulu. There are also recent migrations from further regions such as India and China.
The indigenous inhabitants are originally animists. Islamic influence had reached East Malaysia from as early as the 15th century while there are also Christian influence beginning the 19th century.
The indigenous inhabitants of East Malaysia are generally partisan and maintain culturally distinct dialects of the Malay language, in addition to their own ethnic languages. Approximately 13% of the population of Sabah, and 26% of the population of Sarawak, is composed of ethnic Chinese Malaysians.
Read more about this topic: East Malaysia
Famous quotes containing the word population:
“Like other cities created overnight in the Outlet, Woodward acquired between noon and sunset of September 16, 1893, a population of five thousand; and that night a voluntary committee on law and order sent around the warning, “if you must shoot, shoot straight up!””
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“In our large cities, the population is godless, materialized,—no bond, no fellow-feeling, no enthusiasm. These are not men, but hungers, thirsts, fevers, and appetites walking. How is it people manage to live on,—so aimless as they are? After their peppercorn aims are gained, it seems as if the lime in their bones alone held them together, and not any worthy purpose.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The paid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansions of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; the luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and feature of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)