Sebatik Island

Sebatik Island (Pulau Sebatik) is an island off the eastern coast of Borneo, partly within Indonesia and partly within Malaysia. It is one of the 92 officially listed outlying islands of Indonesia.

Sebatik has an area of approximately 452.2 square kilometres (174.6 sq mi). The minimum distance between Sebatik Island and the mainland of Borneo is about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi).

Sebatik Island lies between Tawau Bay (Teluk Tawau) to the north and Sebuku Bay (Teluk Sebuku) to the south. The town of Tawau lies in Sabah just to the north. The island is bisected at roughly 4° 10' North by the Indonesia-Malaysia border - the northern part belongs to Sabah, Malaysia (Sebatik Malaysia) while the southern part belongs to North Kalimantan (previously East Kalimantan), Indonesia (Sebatik Indonesia).

Sebatik Malaysia has a population estimated to be approximately 25,000; there are approximately 80,000 people in Sebatik Indonesia.

The demarcated international border between Malaysia and Indonesia stops at the eastern edge of Sebatik Island, so that the ownership of Unarang Rock and the maritime area located to the east of Sebatik is unclear. This is one of the reasons why the Ambalat region waters and crude oil deposits east of Sebatik Island have been the center of an active maritime dispute between Indonesia and Malaysia since March 2005. The ambiguity of the border at the eastern edge is sometimes attributed as the reason the two nearby islands of Sipadan and Ligitan were determined to be part of Malaysia, rather than Indonesia.