Colony of North Borneo

The last territory in the empire governed by a chartered company, on land leased from two sultans who disagreed about who owned it. British interests obtained grants from the Sultan of Brunei and the Sultan of Sulu in 1878, and the British North Borneo Chartered Company received its charter in 1881 - an arrangement that made a commercial firm the sovereign administration of an area the size of Ireland, complete with its own flag, stamps, police and courts. The company ran tobacco and then rubber estates and timber concessions, importing Chinese labour, and suppressed resistance including Mat Salleh's rebellion in the 1890s. The Sulu grant used a Malay word meaning either lease or cession depending on the reading, which is the basis of the Philippine claim to Sabah that persists today. Japan occupied the territory from 1942 and Allied bombing destroyed Sandakan; the death marches from its prisoner camp left six survivors of around two thousand four hundred men. The company surrendered its charter in 1946 and North Borneo became a Crown colony. It joined Malaysia as Sabah in 1963. Sandakan and later Jesselton, now Kota Kinabalu, served as capitals. The territory covers about 74 thousand square kilometres. Mount Kinabalu, its highest peak, is now a World Heritage site. The company issued its own currency and postage stamps that collectors still trade. Edible birds' nests from the Gomantong caves were among its exports, collected on bamboo ladders as they still are. The company never paid a dividend for its first two decades.

• Type: Polity
• Government: Colonial administration