Kapit, Sarawak

Kapit is a town in Sarawak. It is the capital of the 15,595 sq km Kapit District within the Kapit Division.

Kapit was founded by Charles Brooke in 1880 as a garrison town. A fort was placed there to prevent the Ibans from going upriver to attack the Orang Ulu settlements. Initially called Fort Kapit, the fort was renamed Fort Sylvia after the wird of Rajah Vyner Brooke. The Hoklo people, a subgroup of the Chinese Hokkien people, came to settle in Kapit in 1880. They were joined by the Ka Chinese in 1906, and the Fuzhou Chinese in 1919.

Kapit was totally destroyed by Allied bombings during the Second World War, and had to be rebuilt following the war. Today it remains a small town with a population of about 60,000.

Getting there

The main way to reach Kapit is to take a boat there from Sibu. The trip takes about 3 hours and costs about RM20 economy class, RM30 first class.

Places of Interest in Kapit

Festivities in Kapit

Kapit is on the map of Towns in Sarawak

Back to Discover Sarawak mainpage

 Latest updates on Penang Travel Tips

About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.

To get to know me better, do follow me on Facebook!