and several commercial shoplots placed throughout the town housing restaurants, vehicle workshops, convenience stores and mini-markets, and various businesses. History The area known as Karak is believed to have been named after the Karak River located on the outskirts of the town by travelers from Sumatra, Indonesia who settled there during in ages past. It began to gain prominence during Malaya's British colonial era, as Pahang was one of the four states administered by British Residents under the federation of the Federated Malay States. British colonial era Foreign-run rubber plantations were then sited across Pahang, with the British-based Karak Rubber Company formed in 1907 acquiring 2,000 acres of forest area in the Bentong district, which was held on a lease from the Resident-General of the Federated Malay States. The company was first poised to develop the land by planting 1,000 acres with rubber over the next three years, with 100 acres already cleared, and the rest to follow suit. Progress was slow at first, though the Karak estate's manager E. H. Bratt found while the soil was "very good", the only lacking was manpower. Up to early 1911, the estate had been employing Tamilian Indian and local Malay labourers, and had just begun to see new Chinese workers come in. The estate first started to tap on their rubber trees in September 1912, with some 4,379 lbs of rubber harvested by the end of the year. The harvesting of the crop picked up over 1913, with 36,501 lbs of rubber produced, as a factory equipped with machinery was built and a motor lorry bought. Some 662 acres of the company's reserve land, deemed of no use to the company, was then surrendered to the government. Rubber output in Karak grew immensely over the years with 247,091 lbs in 1917 up to 521,417 lbs in 1930 as it confirmed a total planted acreage of 1,173 acres by the end of 1935. Roads linking the town to other population centers, such as one to Mentakab in 1924, were also built. In 1939, the town of Karak was listed as a "smaller commercial centre" with a population of at about 300 people. The town was also visited in January 1928 by Hugh Clifford, the Governor of the Straits Settlements and British High Commissioner in Malaya, where he served from 1927 until 1929, during a tour of Pahang over the new year. A former