Kota Kinabalu City has several urban parks, which has become the centre ofurban green space. However the function of the urban park is still not fully recognized. Inaddition, the enlightenment concept of urban forestry is still unclear in view of the public.This study aims to provide an assessment of the functions of each park in the city of KotaKinabalu via public perception. Furthermore, it also aims to identify on public awarenessabout urban forestry concept. There are eight parks that were selected as the location ofthe study. The Parks comprise ofpublic and pocket parks that are maintained solely by theKota Kinabalu City Hall. The sampling method used in this study is convenience samplingwith questionnaires involving 160 respondents, of whom the target group are the parkvisitors. The results of the study show a total of 153 (95.6%) respondents agreed that eachpark has distinct and separated functions. It also shows that urban parks such as PrincePhilip Public Park, Teluk Likas Park, Tun Fuad Stephen Public Park, and Ujana RimbaPublic Park have recreation as the main function, meanwhile Tugu Petagas Public Park,Kampung Air Pocket Park, and Lintasan Deasoka Pocket Park have aesthetic as the mainfunction, whilst the Signal Hill Park is found to serve as soil erosion control. In addition, atotal of 123 (76.9%) of respondents understood the concept of urban forestry as planningand management of trees in urban area. As a conclusion, recreation and aesthetic are themain functions for all of the selected urban parks in the city of Kota Kinabalu city. Besidesthat, it is found that most of the public are aware of the existence ofurban forest concept inthe city of Kota Kinabalu.