History of Kuala Belait

The Kuala Belait Sanitary Board was established near the turn of the 1930s, and this marked the transition of Kuala Belait from a village to a town. The Kuala Belait Sanitary Board was the forerunner of the Kuala Belait/Seria Municipal Board, or Lembaga Bandaran Kuala Belait dan Seria in Malay. In Brunei towns are governed by a Municipal Board while each village is governed by a village council.

The town was captured by the Japanese during the Second World War but was restored to Brunei after the war.

Under the rule of His Majesty the late Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin, the town blossomed as commercial buildings such as the current shophouses along Jalan Pretty.

After independence from Britain in 1984, a number of new government buildings were constructed to house the local services of the Brunei government.

At the turn of the millennium, a number of hotels were built in the center of town which drastically changed the skyline