Changes

*''Other Names: Batavia''

*''Other Names: Batavia''

Jakarta, on the island of Java, is the capital of the modern state of Indonesia. In the early modern period, the city was known as Batavia,<ref>The name Batavia derives from the Batavi, a people who in the first centuries CE inhabited the lands that today comprise the Netherlands.</ref> and was the center of the Dutch East Indies, and the headquarters of the [[Dutch East India Company]] (VOC) operations in the region.

Jakarta, on the island of Java, is the capital of the modern state of Indonesia. In the early modern period, the city was known as Batavia,<ref>The name Batavia derives from the Batavi, a people who in the first centuries CE inhabited the lands that today comprise the Netherlands.</ref> and was the center of the Dutch East Indies, and the headquarters of the [[Dutch East India Company]] (VOC) operations in the region.

The VOC established a foothold in the area around [[1610]], and made Batavia their headquarters in [[1619]].

The city was home to roughly 10.37 million people in 2017, and has continued to grow. Extensive construction, extensive draining (use) of the underground aquifers, and other processes, however, have also caused the city to sink, in some places quite dramatically. Though seawalls and the like have been constructed, many areas of Jakarta have already become flooded and have been lost to the sea in the 2000s-2010s. In 2019, the Indonesian government announced a plan to designate or construct a new national capital within the next ten years.

Batavia was one of a number of cities in Southeast Asia which was home to a sizable [[Nihonmachi|Japanese community]] in the early 17th century. Unlike most of the other Southeast Asian Japantowns, however, which were populated largely by merchants and adventurers, Batavia's Japanese population were largely mercenaries and craftsmen hired explicitly by the VOC to help build the city and/or to work for the Company otherwise. The first Japanese to settle there were 68 carpenters, smiths, and the like brought over by the Dutch in [[1613]]. When the [[Tokugawa shogunate]] imposed [[maritime restrictions]] in [[1639]], many people of mixed Dutch/Japanese parentage were forced to leave Japan, and to settle in Batavia.

 

Batavia was one of a number of cities in Southeast Asia which was home to a sizable [[Nihonmachi|Japanese community]] in the early 17th century. Unlike most of the other Southeast Asian Japantowns, however, which were populated largely by merchants and adventurers, Batavia's Japanese population were largely mercenaries and craftsmen hired explicitly by the VOC to help build the city and/or to work for the Company otherwise. The first Japanese to settle there were 68 carpenters, smiths, and the like brought over by the Dutch in [[1613]]. When the [[Tokugawa shogunate]] imposed [[maritime restrictions]] in [[1639]], many people of mixed Dutch/Japanese parentage were forced to leave Japan, and to settle in Batavia. Along with the Japanese, other local and non-native ethnic groups each congregated in their own separate districts of the city, known as ''kampongs''.

Despite the eventual Dutch dominance over Portuguese, Spanish, or English involvement in the region, the VOC was continually far outstripped by Chinese merchant activity in the region. The volume of trade conducted by Chinese merchants at Batavia alone exceeded that by Dutch merchants throughout the entirety of the region.<ref>[[Marius Jansen]], ''China in the Tokugawa World'', Harvard University Press (1992), 24.</ref>

Despite the eventual Dutch dominance over Portuguese, Spanish, or English involvement in the region, the VOC was continually far outstripped by Chinese merchant activity in the region. The volume of trade conducted by Chinese merchants at Batavia alone exceeded that by Dutch merchants throughout the entirety of the region.<ref>[[Marius Jansen]], ''China in the Tokugawa World'', Harvard University Press (1992), 24.</ref>