Brunei : Muara

Muara Town or Pekan Muara is located in Mukim Serasa and is located on the easternmost tip of West Brunei. It lends its name to the district which it is in, the Brunei-Muara district. To the North is the South China Sea , to the south the Brunei Bay and across the bay, Pulau Muara Besar. To the east, across a man-made channel is the remains of Tanjung Pelumpong (Cape Pelumpong), now an island. To the west is the rest of the Brunei-Muara district. Serasa lies to the south-west of Muara.

For the purpose of this article, Muara includes the area from Kampong Sabun to the channel at Tanjung Pelumpong north of Serasa.

History
Before the 1900s, the village of Muara was inhabited by a small group of Malay fishermen.
The development of the Serai Pimping area for coal extraction in 1883 for steamships, and later settlement of the area as Brooketon by Charles Brooke, the White Rajah of Sarawak in 1889 saw rapid development of the area. Brooketon was named after the White Rajahs of Sarawak gradually lent its name to the area which was then controlled by the government of Sarawak.
The development of the Brooketon Colliery coal mine also lead to transport and infrastructure development at Muara. A wooden railway was built to transport the coal to the safe deep-water anchorage at Muara, and wharves and jetties were built to allow steamships and barges to berth By 1911, more than 1,447 people lived in Muara and some 30 shops had opened in the town. Brooketon was also where the first postage stamp in Brunei was used
Politically too, even though he only had economic rights, Brooke became the de facto ruler of the area. The mine employed hundreds of miners and that required him to introduce a police force, post office and roads transforming Muara into an extraterritorial settlement an extension of Sarawak. It was not until 1921 that Muara was "returned" to Brunei The mine closed in 1924 because of heavy financial losses caused by continuously decreasing coal prices in the world economic recession
The Japanese occupied Brunei during Second World War and attempted unsuccessfully to reopen the coal mine Brooketon was the landing location of the Australian forces during the Second World War which liberated Brunei from Japanese rule Under the rule of His Majesty the late Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin, the area was developed into a deepwater port to assist in the development of the country. Since 1973, Muara Port has undergone extensive improvements. These include extensions to the wharf bringing the total length to 948 meters including 250 meters dedicated container wharf and 87 meters aggregate wharf. The overall storage space in the form of covered storage is 16,950 square meters, long storage warehouses 16,630 square meters and open storage space 5 hectares. Facilities for the dedicated container wharf covers an area of 92,034 square meters including 8,034 square meters covered areas

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