Miri

Sister cities

• Singkawang

History

advocated Miri oil exploration to Royal Dutch Shell.]] Charles Brooke succeeded James Brooke as the new Rajah of Sarawak in 1868. By 1883, Sultan of Brunei (Sultan Abdul Momin) ceded the Baram region (including Miri) to Charles Brooke. The fourth division of Sarawak was immediately created with the installation of Claude Champion de Crespigny as the first Resident of the Division. It was a small settlement surrounded by mangrove and Nipah palm jungles consisted of 20 scattered houses, a few wooden shops operated by Chinese traders and a lone Arab trader. A fort was built in Claudetown (present day Marudi, to the east of Miri) in 1883. Claudetown became the administrative centre of the division. Mr Claude's administration was helped by two junior officers, 30 rangers, and a few native police. Charles Hose succeeded Mr de Crespigny as the new Resident in 1891 and the fort in Marudi was renamed as "Fort Hose". To restore peace among various ethnic tribes fighting in the Baram region, Charles Hose decided to organise a peace conference at his fort in April 1899. This peace conference also led to the birth of first Baram Regatta, a long boat race competition among the natives which continued to be held until today. The local population in Miri has indeed started to extract oil from hand-dug wells for centuries. Song Huiyao Jigao, a documentation of the Song dynasty of China, mentions the imports of Borneo camphor and petroleum in the 11th century. In 1882, Mr de Crespigny reported to the Brooke government on 18 hand-dug oil wells in the Miri area. He also recommended that area near Miri River should be thoroughly explored. However, his recommendations were ignored. But when Charles Hose took over the Resident office in 1891, he was interested in Mr de Crespigny's idea…

Geography

station on Canada Hill in Miri]] Miri is situated on the alluvial plain of the Miri River on the western shore of northern Sarawak on the island of Borneo. Because of the prevailing southerly off-shore current, beach drift has built up the Peninsula Road as a barrier beach between the Miri River and the shore causing a "Yazoo effect" where the river runs parallel to the coast before breaking through into the South China Sea. The city is predominately located on the inland (east) side of the Miri River with only a few scattered residential neighbourhoods, a Golf Club and a small airstrip on the Peninsula Road. Miri has a tropical rainforest climate. There are two monsoon seasons: the southwest monsoon, which is the dry season from April to September, and the northeast monsoon, which is the wet season from October to March. The annual rainfall is around . The air temperature is between to the whole year round. But on rare occasions, the temperature can go down to to especially in the months of November, December and January. The lowest temperature ever recorded was in December 2010 when the mercury dropped down to .

Most-observed species

• Species 2486144

  Species 2486144
  263
• Zebra Dove

  Geopelia striata (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  263
• Asian Glossy Starling

  Aplonis panayensis (Scopoli, 1786) · Aves
  240
• Spotted dove

  Spilopelia chinensis (Scopoli, 1786) · Aves
  205
• Species 2495817

  Species 2495817
  172
• Eurasian Tree Sparrow

  Passer montanus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  163
• Collared Kingfisher

  Todiramphus chloris (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  130
• Chestnut Munia

  Lonchura atricapilla (Vieillot, 1807) · Aves
  106

Most recent

• M 5.2 — 2004-05-01
  78 km SSW of Marudi, Malaysia