About

The Borneo History Blog is a public-facing publication by Borneo History Resources, an independent archival project documenting the history of Borneo — Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei, and Kalimantan.

We publish historical articles, research notes, and primary source material drawn from colonial-era records, official reports, and archival collections spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. Content is published in both English and Malay.

What we cover

Our posts cover the full sweep of Borneo's recorded history: the indigenous kingdoms and sultanates of the interior, the Brooke Raj in Sarawak, British North Borneo Company rule, the Japanese occupation, and the postwar path to independence and Malaysia. We also cover Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan), Brunei, and the broader maritime world that shaped the island.

The archive behind the blog

This blog draws on a larger digitisation project working through approximately 4,000 PDFs from the British North Borneo Herald (1881–1941), Colonial Office records, North Borneo Annual Reports, and related material. That archive is being made searchable at borneohistory.com.

Subscribe

Subscribers get full access to all articles. A subscription directly supports the archival work — digitisation, transcription, and research take significant ongoing effort, and member support makes it sustainable.

For enquiries: admin@borneohistory.com