Kuching is the capital of the East Malaysian State of Sarawak. It is situated at the banks of the Sarawak River on the North-Western part of the island of Borneo. The population of about 2.2 million is made up of a mixture of Malays, Dayaks, Chinese and some Indians and other ethnic groups.
The Chinese are made up of Fujianese (Hokkien) in the city areas and Hakka in the suburbs mainly. Other Chinese consist of Foochow (Fuzhou), Teochew, Hainanese, Cantonese, Henghua, etc.
The people of Sarawak consider themselves Sarawakian first, and everything else second.
Sarawak was a part of the Sultanate of Brunei 200 years ago but as a reward for its help in putting down a rebellion, it was ceded to an English adventurer called James Brooke who ruled it as his personal kingdom. Kuching was made his capital and headquarters. The Brooke family ruled Sarawak until the end of the Second World War when the third and last Rajah, Vyner Brooke in turn ceded it to the British Crown in 1946. Sarawak and the British Commonwealth fought an "Undeclared War" with Indonesia to keep Sarawak from being absorbed into Sukarno's Indonesia. The British gave Sarawak independence in 1963 and together with North Borneo (Sabah) and Singapore, joined Malaysia. (Singapore became independent soon after)
