Travel Reports » Borneo Island (Malaysia)

Borneo is an island in South East Asia and the third largest island in the world after Greenland and New Guinea. Borneo is divided between the three states Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei and has more than 18 million inhabitants. Surrounding waters are the South China Sea to the north and west, the Java Sea to the south, the Strait of Makassar and the Celebes Sea to the east and the Sulu Sea to the northeast. The total length of the island’s coastline is 4971 km. Borneo lies on the equator, which cuts the island a little south of its centre. The highest elevation is in the northeast of the island, Mount Kinabalu, which is also the highest mountain in Southeast Asia at 4095 m. The largest cities are Kuching (632,505 inhabitants, Malaysia), Banjarmasin (598,518 inhabitants, Indonesia), Kota Kinabalu (543,765 inhabitants, Malaysia), Pontianak (466,090 inhabitants, Indonesia) and Sandakan (453,759 inhabitants, Malaysia). Wildlife includes orang-utans, gibbons, the Borneo-only nose monkey, the rhinoceros bird, Asian elephants, the Sunda clouded leopard, the Borneo golden cat, the binturong and the endangered Sumatran rhinoceros.