Jakarta

Jakarta or Djakarta , city and special district (1990 pop. 8,227,746), capital and largest city of Indonesia, NW Java, at the mouth of the canalized Ciliwung River, on Jakarta Bay, an inlet of the Java Sea. It is the country's administrative, commercial, industrial, and transportation center, with food-processing plants, ironworks, automobile-assembly plants, textile mills, chemical factories, tanneries, sawmills, electronics plants, and printing establishments. Its port, Tanjungpriok, is Indonesia's largest, handling most of the country's export-import trade. Exports consist mainly of agricultural, forest, and mining products. There is an international airport.

The city has three sections—the old town in the north, with Javanese, Chinese, and Arab quarters; central Jakarta, with high-rise buildings; and a modern residential garden suburb in the south. With its many canals and drawbridges, North Jakarta resembles a Dutch town. Landmarks include the architectural monuments built during President Sukarno's long rule—freedom statues, a huge sports complex (financed by the Soviet Union), and the Istiqlal Mosque. Jakarta is the seat of the Univ. of Indonesia. There are notable museums and several 17th-century houses and churches.

The Dutch founded (c.1619) the fort of Batavia near the Javanese settlement of Jakarta, repulsing English and native attempts to oust them. Batavia became the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company and was a major trade center in the 17th cent. It declined in the 18th cent., following rebellions against the Dutch, but prospered again with the introduction of plantation cultivation in the 19th cent. From 1811 to 1814, Jakarta was the center of British rule in Java. Batavia was renamed Jakarta in Dec., 1949, and was proclaimed the capital of newly independent Indonesia.

Jakarta Capital of Indonesia, on the nw coast of Java. It was founded (c.1619 as Batavia) by the Dutch as a fort and trading post, and it became the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company. It became the capital after Indonesia gained its independence in 1949. Industries: ironworking, printing, timber. Exports: rubber, tea, quinine. Pop. (2000) 8,385,000.

Jakarta, Java/Indonesia Sunda Kelapa, Jayakarta, Batavia, Djakarta The original name of the small port of the last Hindu kingdom of West Java meant ‘White Coconut’. In 1522 it was taken by the Portuguese who built a fortress here. However, they were driven out five years later by the joint Islamic forces of Banten (also Bantam) and Demak, led by Prince Fatahillah, Sultan of Banten, who made it a vassal of the Muslim state of Demak. He renamed the city Jayakarta ‘City of Great Victory’ or ‘Complete Victory’ in Sundanese. In 1619 it was destroyed by the Dutch under Jan Pieterszoon Coen who rebuilt it as a walled town and named it Batavia in honour of the early Germanic tribes who had settled in Holland; Batavia was the Roman name for that part of Europe. In due course, the developing city took the name of the fortress. Batavia became the capital of the Dutch East India Company and subsequently of the Dutch East Indies. In 1942 it was renamed Djakarta by the Japanese when they occupied the city as a gesture of anti‐Dutch colonialism and ‘goodwill’ towards the Indonesians; Batavia, however, remained the officially recognized name until 1949. In that year, when Indonesia achieved full independence, it became the capital. It is now also a province. The D of Djakarta was dropped in 1972.