After the power of Tarumanagara declined, all of its many territories, including Sunda Pura, became part of the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area were renamed Sunda Kelapa as written in a Hindu monk’s lontar manuscripts, which are now located at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik. By the 14th century, Sunda Kelapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices, especially black pepper.

The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by allowing the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from central Java. In 1527, Fatahillah, a Sumatran Malay warrior from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22, 1527, after which Sunda Kelapa was renamed Jayakarta.

Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company’s first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.

Apparently, Jayawikarta also made a trading connection with the English merchants, rivals of the Dutch, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch later deteriorated, Jayawikarta’s soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. But even with the help of fifteen British ships, Prince Jayakarta’s army wasn’t able to defeat the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English retreat on their ships. With this victory, Dutch power in the area was consolidated. In 1619 they renamed the city “Batavia.”

Within Batavia’s walls, wealthy Dutch built tall houses and pestilential canals. Commercial opportunities attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square, was completed in 1818, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area.

The city was renamed “Jakarta” by the Japanese during their World War II occupation of Indonesia. Following World War II, Indonesian Republicans withdrew from allied-occupied Jakarta during their fight for Indonesian independence and established their capital in Yogyakarta. In 1950, once independence was secured, Jakarta was once again made the national capital. Indonesia’s founding president, Sukarno, envisaged Jakarta as a great international city. He instigated large government-funded projects undertaken with openly nationalistic and modernist architecture. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, and a new parliament building.

In October 1965, Jakarta was the site of an abortive coup attempt which saw 6 top generals killed, and ultimately resulted in the downfall of Sukarno and the start of Suharto’s “New Order. A propaganda monument stands at the place where the general’s bodies were dumped. In 1966, Jakarta was declared a “special capital city district” (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that