Tuaran

Tuaran is a town and a district 1,166 square kilometres in size, situated in the West Coast Division of the state of Sabah, Malaysia on the island of Borneo. The town is bordered on three sides by the eponymous river. It is located 34 km north of the state capital, Kota Kinabalu and is strategically situated along the main highway linking Kota Kinabalu with the north of Sabah.

Etymology

The existence of Tuaran in colonial records can be traced as far back as 1813, in official letters written by Sir Stamford Raffles, the then British Governor of Java, seeking permission to accept the Sultan of Brunei's invitation to deal with piracy issues at 'Jawaran' in the north of Borneo.

'Jawaran' is a corruption of the Malay word tawaran. Tawaran has two meanings; the first meaning is 'fresh water', referring to the importance of the Tuaran area as a source of freshwater for the locality. The second meaning is 'to bargain', which refers to the trading activities which had been taking place in the Tuaran area even before British colonisation commenced in 1884.