萬丹

Banten is the westernmost province on the island of Java, in Indonesia. Its provincial capital city is Serang. The province borders West Java and the Special Capital Region of Jakarta to the east, the Java Sea to the north, the Indian Ocean to the south, and the Sunda Strait to the west, which separates Java from the neighbouring island of Sumatra. The population of Banten was officially estimated at 12,959,169 in the middle of 2019, up from over 10.6 million during the 2010 census. Formerly part of the province of West Java, Banten became a separate province in 2000. The province is a transit corridor to the neighbouring Indonesian island of Sumatra. Historically, it has had a culture distinct from the rest of Java and that of the broader Indonesian archipelago. In recent years, the northern half, particularly those areas near Jakarta and the Java Sea coast, have experienced rapid rises in population and urbanization, while the southern half, particularly that facing the Indian Ocean, maintains more of its traditional character.
Centuries ago, the area in what-is-now Banten is ruled by the Sundanese Tarumanagara kingdom. After the fall of the Tarumanegara, Banten was controlled by many Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, such as the Srivijaya Empire and the Sunda Kingdom. The spread of Islam in the region begins in the 15th century. By the late 16th century, Islam has replaced Hinduism and Buddhism as the dominant religion in the province, with the establishment of the Banten Sultanate. At that time however, Europeans traders started arriving in the region. The first was the Portuguese, then the British and finally the Dutch. In the end, through the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the Dutch controlled the economy in the region, causing a gradual decline of the Banten Sultanate in the region. On 22 November 1808, the Dutch Governor-General Herman Willem Daendels declared that the Sultanate of Banten had been absorbed into the territory of the Dutch East Indies. This marked the beginning of direct Dutch rule in the region for the next 150 years. In March 1942, the Japanese invaded the Indies and occupied the region for 3 years, before they surrendered in August 1945. The area was returned to Dutch control for 5 years, before they handed the region to the new Indonesian government when the Dutch left in 1950.  Banten was absorbed into the province of West Java. However, separatist sentiment ultimately led to the creation of the province of Banten in 2000.A very diverse province, Banten is populated by many ethnic groups, the most dominant being the Bantenese, a sub-group of the Sundanese people. Therefore, the Sundanese language forms the lingua franca of the province, although Indonesian is the main official language. The Javanese language is also spoken by many Javanese migrants from Central or East Java. In the Lebak Regency lives the semi-isolated Baduy people, who spoke the Baduy language, an archaic form of the Sundanese language. Nonetheless, most of the people in Banten can speak Indonesian fluently as their second language.


                      閱讀詳情