Brunei Bay

Brunei Bay is the gateway to Brunei and Borneo. The Brunei portion of the bay is in two sections separated by a finger of Sarawak (Limbang) about 6km wide at the coast. It is a deeply indented bay with an area of about 250,000 ha (c.50,ooo ha in Brunei territory), shared between Brunei Darussalam and the East Malaysian States of Sarawak and Sabah. A chain of islands including the large Malaysian island of Labuan forms the boundary between the bay and the South China Sea. Most of the east and south shores of the bay are covered in extensive mangrove forests with associated mudflats and sandflats at the mouths of the major estuaries. The mangrove forests form a continuous, intact forest within Bruneian territory, but those within the adjacent Sarawak territory have been largely clear-felled to supply the wood-chip industry. Freshwater flows into the bay via a labyrinth of interconnecting channels and waterways.