Sabah Museum, State museum in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
The Sabah Museum is a museum complex in Kota Kinabalu made up of several separate buildings and outdoor areas across a large site. The main building houses permanent collections, and the grounds also contain a science center, a heritage village with traditional houses, an ethnobotanical garden, and a section dedicated to Islamic civilization.
The museum was founded in 1965, starting from a modest collection that gradually grew into a broader institution covering the peoples and natural history of Borneo. Over time, new sections were added to reflect the diversity of communities and environments found across the region.
The museum displays traditional houses from different ethnic groups of Sabah, such as the Bajau and the Murut, which visitors can walk through and explore. These structures give a direct sense of how various communities in the region lived and built their homes.
The museum sits a few kilometers from central Kota Kinabalu and can be reached by car or public transport. Because the site covers a large area with exhibitions across several buildings, arriving early in the day makes it easier to visit at a comfortable pace.
The main building was designed to resemble a traditional Rungus longhouse, making the structure itself an example of the local architecture it documents. This means that even before entering, visitors are already looking at a form of the heritage on display inside.
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