Batavia

Batavia is a city on the north coast of the Indonesian island of Java that is the de facto capital of the Dutch East Indies. The founding of Batavia by the Dutch in 1619, on the site of the ruins of an older city called Jayakarta, led to the establishment of a Dutch colony, as Batavia became the center of the Dutch East India Company's trading network in Asia. To safeguard their commercial interests, the company and the colonial administration absorbed surrounding territory.

The city stands in a sheltered bay, on a land of marshland and hills crisscrossed with canals. The city has two centers: Oud Batavia (the oldest part of the city) and the relatively-newer city, on higher ground to the south.