Kampong Sungai Teraban is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

Belait District Belait District (; Jawi: دأيره بلأيت), or simply Belait (), is the largest as well as the westernmost district in Brunei. It has an area of and the population of 69,062 as of 2016. The administrative town is Kuala Belait, located at ...

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...

, near the district's principal town

Kuala Belait Kuala Belait (KB; Jawi: ) is the administrative town of Belait District, Brunei. The population of the town proper was 4,259 in 2016. Kuala Belait is officially a municipal area (), as well as a village under the mukim of the same name. The t ...

. It has an area of ; the population was 1,082 in 2016. It is one of the administrative

villages A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

within

Mukim Kuala Belait Mukim Kuala Belait is a mukims of Brunei, mukim in Belait District, Brunei. The population was 31,308 in 2016. The mukim encompasses Kuala Belait, the administrative town of the district. Geography The mukim is the located in the westernmost p ...

Geography

The village is located at the mouth of the

Belait River The Belait River ( ms, Sungai Belait) is a river in Belait District, Brunei. It is the longest of the four main rivers in the country. History During World War II from 1941 onwards, the whole of Brunei was under Japanese occupation until 19 ...

, and on the opposite bank of the town centre of Kuala Belait. It is also the westernmost settlement in the country, near the

Brunei–Malaysia border The Brunei–Malaysia border divides the territory of Brunei and Malaysia on the island of Borneo. It consists of a land border and substantial lengths of maritime borders stretching from the coastline of the two countries to the edge of the ...

History

The village was initially known as . The name "Teraban" is believed to have derived from the

Belait language Belait, or Lemeting, is a Malayo-Polynesian language of Brunei and neighbouring Malaysia. It is spoken by the Belait people who mainly reside in the Bruneian Belait District. There were estimated to be 700 speakers in 1995. Classification Bela ...

-word which means 'a resting or stopping place' — it is believed that the area was once a stopping place for boats and ships on the way upstream to

Kuala Balai Mukim Kuala Balai is a mukim in Belait District, Brunei. The population was 31 in 2016. Geography The mukim borders Mukim Seria to the north, Mukim Labi to the east and south, the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the west and Mukim Kuala Belait ...

which was once the administrative centre of what is now Kuala Belait. It is believed that the village was founded by a

Melanau Melanau or ''A-Likou'' (meaning River people in Mukah dialect) is an ethnic group indigenous to Sarawak, Malaysia. They are among the earliest settlers of Sarawak. They speak in the Melanau language, which is a part of the North Bornean branch ...

who migrated from the present-day

Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the M ...

. The original inhabitants were the

Belait people The Belait people are a Bruneian ethnic group native to Belait District. They traditionally speak the Belait language. They are predominantly Muslim. They are officially one of the seven ethnic groups which make up the Bruneian Malay race. Ori ...

and they were mostly fisherman.

Infrastructures

Access to the village from Kuala Belait and elsewhere in the country involves crossing the Belait River. It is currently served by the Rasau Bridge and replaced the ferry service which is now no longer in operation. The local primary school is Sungai Teraban Primary School (). A temporary building was built in 1968 by the villagers on a site. It was then replaced by a permanent building which was inaugurated in 1983. It also houses a ("religious school" i.e. school for the country's Islamic religious primary education). The village mosque is Kampong Sungai Teraban Mosque. It was completed in 1994 and can accommodate 1,400 worshippers. The first piped water supply was installed in the village in 1963. Previously, the water supply was obtained through rainwater. The village has a petrol station; the Kampong Sungai Teraban Farmers Cooporative's Petrol Station was opened in 2002. There is a

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

plan to develop the village into a

border town A border town is a town or city close to the boundary between two countries, states, or regions. Usually the term implies that the nearness to the border is one of the things the place is most famous for. With close proximities to a different coun ...

and

free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econo ...

area.

References

{{Belait District Sungai Teraban Belait District