During earlier times, people tended to settle down in spacious areas and thus the town was born.

In another version of the story, there was once a group of merchants who were attacked and chased by the pirates at the mouth of the Lawas river.

[2] On 7 September 1901, the British North Borneo Company (BNBC) had obtained the administrative rights of the Lawas river from Brunei Sultanate in order to stem the smuggling of weapons that worked against the BNBC government in North Borneo (present day Sabah) and the trading of slaves in the interior of the Lawas district.

They refused to surrender their private ownerships to BNBC but keen to sell their rights to Kingdom of Sarawak.

When the British Consul at Labuan decided that BNBC should take over the Lawas river by force, Pengiran Abu Bakar quickly invited Rajah Charles Brooke from Kingdom of Sarawak to govern the Lawas river.

Lawas is made up of a population comprising Lun Bawang, Brunei Malay, Kedayan, and Chinese.

Plans to develop small and middle scale industries in Lawas have been proposed by the state government.

At this time much of the land in Lawas, Sundar and Trusan has been transformed from padi fields into oil palm plantations.

The cleaned river serves as an important link to neighbouring towns and deep interior settlements.

There is a local bus network as well as buses linking Lawas with Kota Kinabalu (Sabah), Miri (Sarawak) and Brunei.

[8] A planned RM210 million state government office complex cum three-storey shopping mall will be built next to Hotel Seri Malaysia and Lawas Town Square.

[9] The open-air market, locally known as tamu, is held weekly on from Friday evening until Saturday afternoon.

Local produce such as fresh fruits, vegetables, fresh meat, Adan rice, Bario rice, Ikan Tahai, Hill salts (Garam Bakelalan), handycraft traditional and live poultry are sold.