Sandakan Division in the context of Tausūg people

The Ranau District (Malay: Daerah Ranau) is an administrative district in the Malaysian state of Sabah, part of the West Coast Division which includes the districts of Kota Belud, Kota Kinabalu, Papar, Penampang, Putatan, Ranau and Tuaran.

The capital of the district is in Ranau Town. The landlocked district bordering the Sandakan Division to the east until it meets the Interior Division border. Ranau sits 108 km (67 mi) east of Kota Kinabalu and 227 km (141 mi) west of Sandakan. As of the 2010 Census, the population of the district was 94,092, an almost entirely Dusun ethnic community.

Sandakan (Malaysian: [ˈsandaˈkan]) formerly known at various times as Elopura, is the capital of the Sandakan District in Sabah, Malaysia. It is the second largest city in Sabah after Kota Kinabalu. It is located on the Sandakan Peninsula and east coast of the state in the administrative centre of Sandakan Division and was the former capital of British North Borneo. In 2010, the city had an estimated population of 157,330 while the overall municipal area had a total population of 396,290. The population of the municipal area had increased to 439,050 by the 2020 Census.

Before the founding of Sandakan, Sulu Archipelago was the source of dispute between Spain and the Sultanate of Sulu for economic dominance in the region. By 1864, Spain had blockaded the Sultanate possessions in the Sulu Archipelago. The Sultanate of Sulu awarded a German consular service ex-member a piece of land in the Sandakan Bay to seek protection from Germany. In 1878, the Sultanate sold north-eastern Borneo to an Austro-Hungarian consul who later left the territory to a British colonial merchant. The German presence over the area raised concern among the British. As a result, a protocol was signed between the British, German and the Spanish to recognise Spanish sovereignty over the Sulu Archipelago, in return for the Spanish not intervening in British affairs in northern Borneo.

The Kinabatangan River (Malay: Sungai Kinabatangan) is a river in Sandakan Division, in eastern Sabah, Malaysia. It is the second longest river in Malaysia, with a length of 560 km (350 miles) from its headwaters in the mountains of southwest Sabah to its outlet at the Sulu Sea, east of Sandakan. The area is known for its high biodiversity, including its limestone caves at Gomantong Hill, dryland dipterocarp forests, riverine forest, freshwater swamp forest, oxbow lakes, and salty mangrove swamps near the coast.

The Dusun people or simply the Dusuns is the collective name of an Austronesian ethnic groups indigenous to Sabah, Malaysia. They primarily live on the West Coast, in the Interior, and in the Sandakan and Tawau divisions, primarily in the districts of Ranau, Tambunan, Kota Kinabalu, Tuaran, Kota Marudu, Kota Belud, Beaufort, Kuala Penyu, Telupid, Keningau, and Beluran (Labuk-Sugut).

The Dusuns form the largest collective ethnic group in the region with rich traditional heritage, distinct dress, language and customs based on different sub-groups, with an estimated 555,647 (mixed with the Kadazans) spread across the state, where they further jointly form the larger Kadazan-Dusuns. They have been internationally recognised as an indigenous group in the northern part of the island of Borneo since 2004 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).