Abstract

Malaysia is a Southeastern Asian country that is multiracial. Malaysia’s population is unique, which comprise multiple ethnicities living in the country. After the implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) which had taken place in Malaysia for 20 years (1970-1990), this multi-ethnic population underwent different pace of demographic transition amidst rapid social and economic changes. In conjunction with that, this article aims to study the changes in racial segregation in Borneo’s East, Malaysia namely Sabah and Sarawak from 1991 until 2020. To strengthen the findings, this article introduces spatial elements to geo-visualize the long-term changes in the spatial pattern of racial segregation in Borneo’s East, Malaysia. In terms of statistical analysis, racial segregation was calculated by using the Entropy Index (H). In the course of spatial analysis, the results were then being mapped by applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) according to each district in Borneo’s East, Malaysia. Generally, the results divulge that from the year 1991 to 2020, districts in Sabah experienced medium-low segregation of H value between 0.9730 - 1.0038 while districts in Sarawak fall in medium and medium-low segregation of H value between 0.8201 - 0.9316. However, in detail, the value varied across each district. It was observed that 70% of districts in Sabah experienced low degree of racial segregation compared to the majority of districts in Sarawak.