Kuching

Kuching, officially the City of Kuching, is the capital and the most populous city of the state of Sarawak in Malaysia, and it is also the capital of Kuching Division. It stands on the Sarawak River at the southwestern tip of Sarawak on the island of Borneo and is divided into two administrative regions, Kuching North and Kuching South, which are run by separate local authorities. The town was founded in 1827 by a representative of the Sultan of Brunei, became the capital of the Kingdom of Sarawak in 1841 under James Brooke, was occupied by Japanese forces from 1942 to 1945, and was granted city status in 1988. The English Wikipedia article gives a total of 514,658 people across the two regions on an area of 431 square kilometres, and Kuching is a member of UNESCO's Creative Cities Network.