Per resident flatters small districts, but the Sarawak interior’s lead is more than chance

Every way of counting a district’s money favours someone. In total, big districts win; per resident, small ones; per km², dense ones. So we asked what the per-resident figures would look like if money simply followed residents: dealt at random, contract by contract, 2,000 times. Seventeen districts receive more tender money per resident than that chance band allows and nineteen receive less. Belaga’s band tops out at RM 1,549 a year; it receives RM 3,018, and still RM 2,108 without its largest contract.

January 2023 to September 2026, placed tender money unless a figure says quotations. Districts named here open on the overview’s map.

Three counts, three different top tens

In total, Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and Petaling lead: they hold the most people and the most offices, schools and hospitals. Per resident, Belaga, Putrajaya and Julau lead, districts of 16,000 to 120,000 residents. Per km² of land, Putrajaya and Kuala Lumpur lead, the densest places in the country (Table 1). Putrajaya is near the top on every count; no other district is.

Table 1. The ten districts with the most placed tender money, January 2023 to September 2026, counted in total, per resident a year and per km² of land a year.

A chance band shows how far a district of its size can swing

A small district’s per-resident figure moves a long way on one contract. To see how far, we kept every placed tender award and its value, and dealt each to a district at random, in proportion to residents, 2,000 times. The grey band holds 95% of the results for a district of each size: wide for small districts, narrow for large ones (Figure 1). Seventeen districts sit above their band: all but three of them, Putrajaya, Labuan and Kuala Terengganu, are rural districts of Sarawak, Sabah, Terengganu and Kelantan. Twenty sit below it, among them Selangor’s Petaling, Klang, Gombak and Ulu Langat and Sabah’s Kalabakan and Penampang.

Figure 1. Tender money per resident a year against residents, each dot a district (both scales logarithmic). The grey band is where 95% of districts that size land when every award is dealt at random in proportion to residents. Lime dots are above their band, ink dots below. Tap a dot to open the district on the overview’s map.

Table 2. The seventeen districts whose tender money per resident is above their chance band, with the figure their largest single contract removed.

Quotations

Figure 2. The same for quotations. Quotations are many and small, so the band is narrow, and more districts fall outside it.

Like with like: rural districts receive more tender money per resident

DOSM classes districts by density: urban (1,000 residents per km² or more), suburban (150 to 1,000) and rural (under 150). Rural districts receive RM 540 per resident a year in tenders, against RM 331 suburban and RM 343 urban; quotations are level, RM 91 to 94 (Figure 3). Per km², the order flips: urban land receives far more, because that is where the people are. Within each class, Table 4 lists the five districts with the most per resident.

Figure 3. Placed money per resident a year and per km² a year, by density class. The ink tick is the national figure.

Table 3. The three density classes: districts, residents, land and money per resident a year.

Table 4. The five districts with the most tender money per resident a year in each density class.

Which count to use

In total: what a district’s firms, workers and suppliers see.
Per resident: what the money is per person served, read with the chance band for small districts.
Per km²: what reaches the ground; useful for works, misleading for services.
By density class: the fairest single comparison, since it sets towns against towns and the interior against the interior.

Method

Chance band: every placed tender award in the window keeps its value and is dealt to one of the 160 districts with probability in proportion to the district’s 2024 residents; 2,000 deals (seeded, repeatable). A district’s band is the 2.5th to 97.5th percentile of its own per-resident figure over the deals. A district outside its band is unlikely, at the 5% level, to get its figure from lumpy contracts alone if money followed residents.
Without its largest contract: the district’s placed tender money less its single largest award, per resident a year.
Land: each district’s area from DOSM’s outlines, computed on the ellipsoid; water inside the outline counts.