Lawas

Lawas is a small town and the capital of Lawas District in Limbang Division, Sarawak, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo near the borders with Sabah and Brunei. The district covers 3,811.9 square kilometres and had 46,200 people at the 2020 census. In 1905 the Brooke government of Sarawak took over the Lawas river from the British North Borneo Company, which had obtained administrative rights there in 1901, in exchange for 5,000 pounds and some areas around Brunei Bay. The town has a tropical rainforest climate with heavy rainfall all year. Its people include the Lun Bawang, Brunei Malay, Kedayan and Chinese, and timber and agriculture are the economic mainstays, with oil palm replacing padi fields and smoked fish called tahai a local product. Lawas has an airport (IATA: LWY), a wharf with boats to Brunei, Labuan and Limbang, road crossings to Brunei at Mengkalap and to Sabah at Merapok, and a weekly open-air tamu market.