According to the 2020 Malaysian census, the population of Sabah stands at 3,418,785. This makes Sabah the third most populous state in Malaysia, with the highest non-citizen population at 810,443. Though Malaysia is one of the least densely populated countries in Asia, Sabah is particularly sparsely populated with most of the population concentrated in the coastal areas as towns and urban centers have massively expanded. The statistics in 1970 reported the population of Sabah at only 653,604, with both the state and its neighbour Sarawak having about the same number of foreign nationals. In 1980, the state population saw a sudden increase to almost a million following the influx of refugees fleeing a conflict in the neighbouring southern Philippines. At the same time, Sabah economic booms