Batavia
Founded in 1619 on a sheltered bay on Java's northwest coast by the Dutch East India Company's governor-general Jan Pieterszoon Coen on a site formerly known as Jayakarta, Batavia became the capital of newly independent Indonesia on 27 December 1949 and reverted to a variation of its pre-colonial name.
During three hundred and thirty years of Dutch rule, Batavia served as the capital and main commercial centre of the Dutch East Indies and the focal point of a trading network across modern-day Indonesia extending north to Japan, Taiwan, and China.
