Brunei Map

Brunei Darussalam is a small sultanate on the north coast of Borneo, facing the South China Sea and otherwise surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Its 5,765 square kilometers are split in two: Sarawak's Limbang district cuts between the main western part of the country and the Temburong district in the east. About 466,000 people live in Brunei (UN World Population Prospects, 2025 estimate), most of them along the coast between the capital and the oil towns of the west.

Four districts and a bridge

Brunei is divided into four districts (daerah), which are subdivided into mukims and villages:

• Brunei-Muara - the smallest district by area but home to most of the population, with the capital, the international airport and the deep-water port at Muara.
• Belait - the largest district, in the west, where oil was struck at Seria in 1929; the towns of Seria and Kuala Belait grew up around the oilfields and the operations of Brunei Shell.
• Tutong - between the two, with a largely rural interior and Tasek Merimbun, the country's largest natural lake.
• Temburong - the separated eastern district, almost entirely forested, with the small town of Bangar as its center.

Until 2020 the usual ways to reach Temburong were by speedboat through the mangrove channels of Brunei Bay or by road through Malaysian Limbang, crossing two borders. The 30-kilometer Temburong Bridge (officially the Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien Bridge), opened in March 2020, now crosses the bay and its swamps directly and is one of the longest bridges in Southeast Asia.

Coast, rainforest and climate

The coast is a strip of sandy beaches, peat swamp and mangrove. Inland the land rises to forested hills, reaching 1,850 meters at Bukit Pagon on the Temburong-Sarawak border, the country's highest point. Most of Brunei is still forested, an unusual record on Borneo that oil wealth made possible, because the country never depended on large-scale logging or plantations. The best-known reserve is Ulu Temburong National Park, reached by longboat, with a canopy walkway high above lowland dipterocarp forest, and proboscis monkeys live in the mangroves around Brunei Bay. The climate is equatorial, hot and humid throughout the year, with rain in every month; it is wettest during the northeast monsoon, from around November to January, and the relatively drier months from about February to April are the most comfortable time to visit.

Bandar Seri Begawan and Kampong Ayer

The capital lies on the Brunei River a few kilometers from the sea. Its landmarks are the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, completed in 1958 with a gold dome rising above an artificial lagoon; the larger Jame' Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque; and Istana Nurul Iman, the Sultan's residence and the seat of government, which with 1,788 rooms is recognised as the world's largest residential palace. Facing the town across the river is Kampong Ayer, a cluster of stilt villages linked by boardwalks and water taxis that was the heart of the sultanate for centuries. Its population has fallen as families moved to housing on land, to about 9,000 at the 2021 census.

Oil, monarchy and the region

In the 15th and 16th centuries the Bruneian sultanate controlled much of Borneo's coast and parts of the southern Philippines, but in the 19th century it lost territory to the Brooke rajahs of Sarawak and the British North Borneo Company, which is why the country is now so small and divided. It became a British protectorate in 1888, chose not to join Malaysia in 1963 and became fully independent on 1 January 1984, joining ASEAN a week later. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, on the throne since October 1967 and the world's longest-reigning current monarch, is also prime minister. The state ideology, Melayu Islam Beraja (Malay Islamic Monarchy), frames national identity; Islam is the official religion, sharia criminal law operates alongside civil law, and the sale of alcohol is banned. Malay is the official language and English is widely used in business and education.

Crude oil and liquefied natural gas still provide most export earnings and government revenue, and citizens pay no personal income tax. GDP per person is about US$32,200 (World Bank, 2025), among the highest in Asia. The Wawasan Brunei 2035 plan aims to diversify the economy, including through the Hengyi refinery and petrochemical complex on Pulau Muara Besar. Brunei's maritime zone in the South China Sea extends to the area of Louisa Reef in the southern Spratlys, which other states also claim; Brunei does not occupy any features there.