Makassar (, , ), formerly Ujung Pandang, 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 center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, and Bandung. The city is located on the southwest coast of the island of Sulawesi, facing the Makassar Strait.
Throughout its history, Makassar has been an important trading port, hosting the center 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.
The city's area is , and it had a population of around 1.432 million in mid 2022 within Makassar City's fifteen administrative districts. Its official metropolitan area, known as Mamminasata, with the addition of thirty-three further districts of neighboring regencies, covers an area of and had a population of around 2,740,532 according to the mid 2022 official estimates.
According to the National Development Planning Agency, Makassar is one of the four main central cities of Indonesia, alongside Medan, Jakarta, and Surabaya.
According to Bank Indonesia, Makassar has the second-highest commercial property values in Indonesia, after Greater Jakarta.
Names and etymology
The name Makassar was long spelled Macassar in English and many other European languages, although the Portuguese spelled it Macáçar during their presence there in the 17th century.
The Dutch spelled the name both Makasser and Makassar during their rule over the city as part of the Dutch East Indies. With the independence following World War II, the Indonesians kept the Dutch spelling of Makassar with a double 's', despite the fact that the Indonesian language does not have geminate consonants.
On 1 September 1971 (until 1999), the city was renamed after a variant of the pre-colonial name of the city's Fort Rotterdam, Ujung Pandang (Makassarese: Jumpandang).
The action was taken at the time Makassar was expanding from its original 21 km2 to encompass neighboring regions to de-emphasise the ethnic connotations of the name, enlarged to its present area. Ujung Pandang remained locally unpopular and, on 13 October 1999, the name reverted to Makassar under President B. J. Habibie, himself a native of South Sulawesi.
In the local language, the city is known as Mangkasara, written in the Lontara script traditionally used to write Makassarese as well as Buginese, which is also widely spoken in the city.
The adjective form of the city's name and the eponymous ethnic group has varied over time. In English, Macassarese, Makassarese, and Macassan have all been used, although the latter is usually used in the historical context of trepangers in northern Australia (the Macassan contact with Australia) and may include people not from Makassar. More recently, forms such as Makasarese and simply Makasar (both with a single 's') have appeared.
History
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.
Makassarese Kingdom
The 9th King of Gowa Tumaparisi Kallonna (1512–1546) is described in the royal chronicle as the first Gowa ruler to ally with the nearby trade-oriented polity of Tallo, a partnership which endured throughout Makassar's apogee as an independent kingdom. The center of the dual kingdom was at Sombaopu, near the then mouth of the Jeneberang River about 10 km south of the present city center, where, where an international port and a fortress were gradually developed. First Malay traders (expelled from their Melaka metropolis by the Portuguese in 1511), then Portuguese from at least the 1540s, began to make this port their base for trading to the Spice Islands (Maluku), further east.