Part of the south state of Malaysia is called Sarawak, which is joined by the border with Indonesia and Brunei. The capital city of Sarawak is Kuching, which is the largest city on the island of Borneo and has the seventh largest population in Malaysia (population 580,000), behind Kuala Lumpur, Subang Jaya and a few others. The status of "city" was given to Kuching in 1988.
The name Kuching comes from the word "cat" which is a Malay word - the Malay spelling these days for cat being kucing. However, there is another explanation for the city name still bandied about and that is the Indian name for port which is "cochin". After all, it is said that Kuching was first inhabited by Indian traders and not by the Chinese as you may expect.
As a reward to the British, in 1841 Sarawak was ceded to James Brooke, a British adventurer, by the Sultanate of Brunei for coming to his aid and putting down a rebellion. James Brooke made Kuching his headquarters and capital. The family Brooke ruled Sarawak until the occupation of the Japanese a hundred years later, in 1941.
On December 24 1941, Kuching was surrendered to the Japanese forces and Kuching and Sarawak remained part of the Japanese Imperial Empire until 11th of September 1945, when the Japanese surrendered it. Just 3 miles outside Kuching at Batu Lintang, the Japanese operated a POW civilian internee camp where many of the previous British residents were kept in harsh conditions.
In 1946 once the British regained control over Sarawak, the last Raja - Sir Charles Vyner Brooke ceded it to the British Crown. However, Indonesia, which was governed by President Sukarno, wished to regain control of Sarawak and there was an undeclared war fought with the British to do so.
The British retained control and in September 1963 gave it independence. Sarawak, along with Sabah, North Borneo and Singapore, all combined to form the Federation of Malaya in 1963, although Singapore was expelled from the Federation in 1965 and became the independent Republic of Singapore thereafter.
Strangely enough and as a sidenote, the island of Singapore before European settlement was a simple Malay fishing village. Hard to imagine and a far cry from what it is now!
Learn more about the south east island of Malaysia and stay in one of the Kuching Hotels. Check out one of the very best hotels at Damai.
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