Kuching ( /ˈkuːtʃɪŋ/ KOO-ching; Chinese: 古晋）), officially the City of Kuching, and formerly the City of Sarawak, is the capital and most populous city of the East Malaysian state of Sarawak. The city covers an area of 719 sq miles (1,863 km²) and and has an estimated population of 1 million of 2012.

Kuching is one of the two subsets of the Kuching Proper subdistrict, the other subset being part of the Padawan municipality. Kuching Proper is one of the three subdistricts in the Kuching District, which is one of the three districts in the Kuching Division.

More than 150 years ago, Sarawak was essentially Kuching. Kuching was known as Sarawak first, then the word Proper, was added to Sarawak, thus Sarawak Proper, so as to distinguish it from the larger Sarawak which, in 1841, consisted of only the area between Tanjung Datu, and the Samarahan River. On 12 August 1872, Sarawak Proper was given its present name, Kuching, under the rule of the second Rajah of Sarawak, Charles Brooke.

Kuching was named after a tidal stream called Kuching River (Sungai Kuching) that ran between the present-day Tua Pek Kong Temple, and Chinese History Museum. The stream originated from Cat's Eye Hill (Bukit Mata Kuching) where there was an abundance of a local fruit called Green Longan (Isau, Dimocarpus longan ssp malesianus), vernacularly known as Cat's Eye (Mata Kuching). In 1928, the stream was filled up to make way for the construction of Temple Street (Lebuh Temple), and thus the city's expansion eastwards.