Bengkulu is a
provinceThe province is the highest tier of local government subnational entity in Indonesia. Each province has its own local government, headed by a governor, and has its own legislative body...
of
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. It is on the southwest coast of the island of
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
, and borders the provinces of
West SumatraWest Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. It lies on the west coast of the island Sumatra, and borders the provinces of North Sumatra to the north, Riau and Jambi to the east, and Bengkulu to the southeast. It includes the Mentawai Islands off the coast...
, Jambi,
South SumatraSouth Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. It is on the island of Sumatra, and borders the provinces of Lampung to the south, Bengkulu to the west, and Jambi to the north...
and
LampungLampung is a province of Indonesia, located on the southern tip of the island of Sumatra. It borders the provinces of Bengkulu and South Sumatra. Lampung is the original home of the "Lampung" tribe, who speak a distinct language from other people in Sumatra and have their own alphabet.The province...
. The capital and largest city of the province is Bengkulu city. It was formerly the site of a British
garrisonGarrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, of more than 50 men, but now often simply using it as a home base. The station is usually a city, town, fort, castle or similar...
, which they called
Bencoolen.
The province has a population of 1,405,060 (2000
censusA "census" is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population.In other words every 10 years...next one would be in 2010 The term is used mostly in connection with...
). The province also includes
Enggano IslandEnggano Island is an island approximately 100 km south west of Sumatra, Indonesia.Politically it is a subdistrict of the North Bengkulu Regency of the Indonesian province of Bengkulu. It has an area of roughly 500 km² and the highest point is 281 m. The three largest towns on the island are...
.
The
British East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
established a long-running
pepperBlack pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is a small drupe approximately five millimetres in diameter, dark red when fully mature, containing a single...
-trading center and garrison at Bengkulu (Bencoolen) in 1685.
Bengkulu is a
provinceThe province is the highest tier of local government subnational entity in Indonesia. Each province has its own local government, headed by a governor, and has its own legislative body...
of
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. It is on the southwest coast of the island of
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
, and borders the provinces of
West SumatraWest Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. It lies on the west coast of the island Sumatra, and borders the provinces of North Sumatra to the north, Riau and Jambi to the east, and Bengkulu to the southeast. It includes the Mentawai Islands off the coast...
, Jambi,
South SumatraSouth Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. It is on the island of Sumatra, and borders the provinces of Lampung to the south, Bengkulu to the west, and Jambi to the north...
and
LampungLampung is a province of Indonesia, located on the southern tip of the island of Sumatra. It borders the provinces of Bengkulu and South Sumatra. Lampung is the original home of the "Lampung" tribe, who speak a distinct language from other people in Sumatra and have their own alphabet.The province...
. The capital and largest city of the province is Bengkulu city. It was formerly the site of a British
garrisonGarrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, of more than 50 men, but now often simply using it as a home base. The station is usually a city, town, fort, castle or similar...
, which they called
Bencoolen.
The province has a population of 1,405,060 (2000
censusA "census" is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population.In other words every 10 years...next one would be in 2010 The term is used mostly in connection with...
). The province also includes
Enggano IslandEnggano Island is an island approximately 100 km south west of Sumatra, Indonesia.Politically it is a subdistrict of the North Bengkulu Regency of the Indonesian province of Bengkulu. It has an area of roughly 500 km² and the highest point is 281 m. The three largest towns on the island are...
.
History
The
British East India CompanyThe East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
established a long-running
pepperBlack pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is a small drupe approximately five millimetres in diameter, dark red when fully mature, containing a single...
-trading center and garrison at Bengkulu (Bencoolen) in 1685. In 1714 the British built
Fort Marlborough in the city; the fort still stands. The trading post was never financially profitable for the British, hampered by a location Europeans found unpleasant, and, more importantly, an inability to find sufficient pepper to buy.
Despite these difficulties, the
BritishThe British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, one of the Channel Islands, or of one of the British overseas territories, and their descendants. In a historical context, the term refers to the ancient Britons, the indigenous inhabitants of Great Britain south of the...
persisted, maintaining the presence there for 150 years before ceding it to the
DutchThe Dutch East Indies, or Netherlands East Indies, was the Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II.It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the former Dutch East India Company that came under the administration of the Netherlands in 1800...
as part of the
Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, also known as the Treaty of London , was a treaty signed between the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in London on 17 March 1824. The treaty was to resolve disputes arising from the execution of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814...
to focus attention on
MalaccaMalacca is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south. The capital is Malacca Town...
. Like the rest of present-day Indonesia, Bengkulu remained a Dutch colony until after
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
During
SukarnoSukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo was the first President of Indonesia. He helped the country win its independence from the Netherlands and was President from 1945 to 1967, presiding with mixed success over the country's turbulent transition to independence...
's imprisonment by the Dutch in the early 1930s, the future first president of Indonesia lived briefly in Bengkulu. Here he met his wife, Fatmawati, who gave him several children, the most famous being the first female President of Indonesia,
Megawati Sukarnoputri, also known simply as Megawati, is an Indonesian politician, and leader of opposition party PDI-P. She served as the President of Indonesia from 23 July 2001 to 20 October 2004 and was the country's first female President. She is also the first Indonesian leader to be born after independence...
.
Bengkulu lies near the Sunda Fault and is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. In June 2000 a quake caused damage and the death of at least 100 people. A recent report predicts that Bengkulu is "at risk of inundation over the next few decades from undersea earthquakes predicted along the coast of Sumatra"
A series of earthquakes struck Bengkulu during September, 2007, killing 13 people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/world/asia/15quake.html?ex=1347508800&en=e8aad74057996e2a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Economy
Coal miningCoal mining is the extraction or removal of coal from the earth by mining. When coal is used for fuel in power generation it is referred to as steaming or thermal coal. Coal that is used to create coke for steel manufacturing is referred to as coking or metallurgical coal...
is a major economic activity in Bengkulu. Three active coal mining companies produce between 200,000 and 400,000
tonThe term ton or tonne generally refers to a unit of mass. However, there exists more than one measure of mass that are named "ton", so one has to be specific when using the term. While they do vary considerably, a ton is generally one of the heaviest units of mass referred to in colloquial speech...
s of
coalCoal is a readily combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock normally occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
per year, which is exported to
MalaysiaMalaysia is a country in Southeast Asia that consists of thirteen states and three Federal Territories, with a total landmass of . The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. The population stands at over 28 million inhabitants...
,
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At , Singapore is a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast...
,
South AsiaSouth Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries on the west and the east...
, and
East AsiaEast Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geo-politically, it covers about , or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang,...
.
Fishing, especially of
tunaTuna are ocean-dwelling carnivorous fish in the family Scombridae, mostly in the genus Thunnus. Tuna are fast swimmers—they have been clocked at —and include several warm-blooded species...
and
mackerelMackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of fish, mostly, but not exclusively, from the family Scombridae. They may be found in all tropical and temperate seas. Most live offshore in the oceanic environment but a few, like the Spanish mackerel , enter bays and can be...
, is an important activity. Agricultural products exported by the province include
gingerGinger is a tuber which is consumed whole as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale....
,
bambooThe bamboos are a group of woody perennial evergreen plants in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Some are giant bamboos, the largest members of the grass family. Bamboos are the fastest growing woody plants in the world...
shoots, and
rubberNatural rubber is an elastomer that was originally derived from a milky colloidal suspension, or latex, found in the sap of some plants. The purified form of natural rubber is the chemical polyisoprene, which can also be produced synthetically...
.