1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Malaysia
Compare this sourced profile of Kota Bharu, Malaysia before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Kota Bharu—568,900, Asia/Kuala_Lumpur, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: state capital of Kelantan, Malaysia.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Kota Bharu is GeoNames ID 1736376. Its recorded administrative path is Kota Bharu → Kelantan → Malaysia, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Kota Bharu occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-04-14; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Kota Bharu ranks 980 by recorded population. Inside the 20 selected Malaysia entries it ranks 11; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 526. Its 568,900 population value is 0.99 times the 572,439 median for the country cohort and 0.56 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Kota Bharu sits in the lower half of this atlas's selected Malaysia entries. Kota Bharu's recorded value stays within one quarter of the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Kota Bharu's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Sungai Petani at 201.287 km with 544,851 recorded people; Ipoh at 214.029 km with 759,952 recorded people; Kota Kuala Muda at 215.509 km with 544,984 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 14.222 km. Compared with Sungai Petani, Kota Bharu's recorded population is 1.04 times as large. Against Kota Bharu, Sungai Petani follows Kuala Muda → Kedah → Malaysia in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected Malaysia cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kuala_Lumpur identifier, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Kota Bharu's. Against Kota Bharu, Ipoh follows Daerah Kinta → Perak → Malaysia in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected Malaysia cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kuala_Lumpur identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is above Kota Bharu's. Against Kota Bharu, Kota Kuala Muda follows Kuala Muda → Kedah → Malaysia in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected Malaysia cohort, uses the shared Asia/Kuala_Lumpur identifier, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Kota Bharu's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 997 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Kota Bharu's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1736376, the coordinate pair 6.1236 / 102.2433, country rank 11 of 20, and neighbor GeoNames 1735498 at 201.287 km bind Kota Bharu to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Kota Bharu's reference point is 6.1236° north and 102.2433° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Kuala_Lumpur is shared by 19 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Kota Bharu's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Kota Bharu's point falls in the near-equatorial coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Kota Bharu's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Kota Bharu, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Kota Bharu's closest other entries in this atlas are Sungai Petani (201.287 km), Ipoh (214.029 km), Kota Kuala Muda (215.509 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Kota Bharu, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-04-14; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.