Those two words of the English language are "mango" and "town" in which the latter had since evolved into just “tal” due to the fast spoken linguistic nature of the native Dusuns residing in the sub-Jesselton area.

During the World War II, Manggatal is also the base where the Kinabalu Guerillas led by a Sarawak-born Chinese, Albert Kwok actively operating to fight the Japanese.

In the present day, many landowners in Manggatal, which are also mainly native Dusuns, have also been forced to relocate from their ancestral lands due to the government's pet project, Pan Borneo Highway.

Starting in the 1970s, Manggatal has witnessed a drastic increase in the population of Filipino and Indonesian immigrants, many of whom have been naturalised (both legally and illegally) and live in squatter colonies.

The state's main institution of learning, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, is located in a coastal part of Manggatal sub-district, in the nearby Sepanggar neighbourhood.