The Cove

Tanjung Bungah reaches from forested hillsides to the shore on the north-east coast of Penang Island, between Tanjung Tokong and Batu Ferringhi. Once a Malay and Chinese fishing village and a beach destination from the 1950s, it has grown since the 1980s into a line of high-rise condominiums along the coast. Many foreign residents live here, including retirees, and the Penang Floating Mosque, built after the 2004 tsunami, is a local landmark.

Dalat International School has been on its beachside campus since 1971, and Prince of Wales Island International School runs a nursery-to-Year-8 campus on Jalan Loh Poh Heng; Tenby Schools Penang, teaching British and Malaysian curricula, is just beside the suburb. The wet market on Jalan Sungai Kelian opens every morning and turns into a night bazaar of snacks and street food on Tuesdays.

Jalan Tanjung Bungah, the coastal main road, carries Rapid Penang buses 101, 102 and 104, and the single-carriageway road onward to Batu Ferringhi jams at holidays and on long weekends. As of September 2025 a 10.6 km North Coastal Paired Road to Teluk Bahang was expected to be built from 2026 to 2031, subject to an amended environmental impact assessment and land acquisition.

In October 2017 a landslide at a hillside construction site beside a quarry killed 11 workers; a state inquiry found it preventable and recommended tighter rules for building on steep slopes. Residents have described unplanned, high-density hillside development, and in June 2021 a downpour flooded villages here and along the neighbouring coast.