page_title: Makassar
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Makassar / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The inside of Fort Rotterdam in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
context_page_description: Makassar is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban centre after Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, and Medan. From 1971 to 1999, the city was renamed after one of its component districts, Ujung Pandang. The city is located on the southwest coast of the island of Sulawesi, facing the Makassar Strait. Makassar is not only the gateway of Eastern Indonesia, but also the epicenter of West and East Indonesia, as well as between Australia and Asia.
  Throughout its history, Makassar has been an important trading port, hosting the centre of the Gowa Sultanate and a Portuguese naval base before its conquest by the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century. It remained an important port in the Dutch East Indies, serving Eastern Indonesian regions with Makassarese fishers going as far south as the Australian coast. For a brief period after Indonesian independence, Makassar became the capital of the State of East Indonesia, during which an uprising occurred.
context_section_description: The trade in spices figured prominently in the history of Sulawesi, which involved frequent struggles between rival native and foreign powers for control of the lucrative trade during the pre-colonial and colonial period when spices from the region were in high demand in the West. Much of South Sulawesi's early history was written in old texts that can be traced back to the 13th and 14th centuries.
  Makassar is mentioned in the Nagarakretagama, a Javanese eulogy composed in 14th century during the reign of Majapahit king Hayam Wuruk. In the text, Makassar is mentioned as an island under Majapahit dominance, alongside Butun, Salaya and Banggawi.
caption: Fort Rotterdam in 2010
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