Place · city

Sandakan

Also known as Elopura

Sandakan is a city on the north-east coast of Sabah, Malaysia. Founded in 1879 and renamed from Elopura, it was the capital of British North Borneo from 1884 until much of it was destroyed in the Second World War, when the Japanese held prisoners of war there; the Sandakan death marches began from its camp. The capital then moved to Jesselton, now Kota Kinabalu.

Sandakan
Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 3 state histories

North BorneoJapanese occupation of British BorneoCrown Colony of North Borneo

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Sandakan. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/sandakan
MLA
“Sandakan.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/sandakan. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Sandakan.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/sandakan.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Sandakan’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/sandakan (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻