Until 1949, the Port of Jakarta was called Batavia, and from 1949 until 1972, it was Djakarta. Its ancient name was Sunda Kelapa. The Port of Jakarta is the capital and biggest city of Indonesia. The Port of Jakarta lies on the northwest coast of the island of Java at the mouth of the Ciliwung River about 116 nautical miles east-southeast of the Port of Panjang on the island of Sumatra. The twelfth largest city in the world, the Port of Jakarta is an important center for education and industry. In 2007, over 8.4 million people lived in the Port of Jakarta.

The economy of the Port of Jakarta is dependent on financial services, manufacturing, and trade. The city's manufacturing sector is diverse and includes makers of electronics, chemicals, automobiles, and products that support mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences. One of Indonesia's busiest cities, the Port of Jakarta has a relatively high per capital income for the country.

As long ago as the 4th Century AD, the old Port of Jakarta was the capital city for the Indianized Kingdom of Tarumanagara. King Purnawarman established the new capital city of Sunda Pura. When the Tarumanagara Kingdom declined, the territory, including the future Port of Jakarta, came under the Kingdom of Sunda, renaming the harbor area as Sunda Kelapa.

By the 14th Century, Sunda Kelapa was an important trading port for the Sunda kingdom. The first Europeans arrived at the Port of Jakarta in 1513 on four Portuguese ships seeking a trade route for spices. In 1522, the kingdom granted permission for the Portuguese to build a port there to protect the city from the growing Sultanate of Demak from central Java. The defenses did not hold. In 1527, a Sumatran Malay warrior from the Sultanate of Demak, Fatahillah, conquered the harbor, and it was renamed Jayakarta.

Based on their relationship with Prince Jayawikarta of the Sultanate of Banten, the Dutch arrived at the Port of Jakarta in 1596. Shortly after that in 1602, the British East India Company was allowed to build a trading post in nearby Banten that was their trade center in Indonesia until 1682.

Prince Jayawikarta allowed British merchants to build homes in the Port of Jakarta across from Dutch buildings in the early 17th Century. His relationship with the Dutch deteriorated, and his soldiers attacked the Dutch Fortress in 1615. The Dutch repelled the attack, burned the English fort, and forced the British to retreat to their ships. This action consolidated Dutch power in the area, and they renamed the future Port of Jakarta Batavia in 1619.

Protected by the Port of Jakarta's city walls, the Dutch built large houses and disease-causing canals. Indonesian and Chinese immigrants came to the Port of Jakarta to take advantage of the commercial opportunities there, and the city's population soon outgrew the city's capacity. The colonial government attempted to limit the Chinese population by deporting them. In 1740, they massacred some five thousand Chinese, and Chinese residents moved outside the city walls the next year. Epidemics in 1835 and 1870 led people to move south of the Port of Jakarta. The last Dutch residential area, Kebayoran Baru, was finished in 1818.

When the Japanese occupied Indonesia during World War II, they renamed the city Jakarta. After the war, Indonesian Republicans fighting for independence established their capital in Yogyakarta, leaving the Port of Jakarta to its Allied occupiers.

When Indonesia won its independence in 1950, the Port of Jakarta again became the capital of the new nation. Visualizing the Port of Jakarta as a great international city, Sukarno undertook many huge projects that brought nationalistic and modernist architecture to the city. He added a clover-leaf highway, the Jalan Sudirman boulevard, a parliament building, several new hotels, and many monuments in the Port of Jakarta.

In 1966, the Port of Jakarta gained status roughly equal to a state or province. The Governor, Ali Sadikin, rehabilitated city infrastructure, built hospitals and schools, and encouraged the arts. He cleared slums and controlled migration into the city to avoid poverty and overcrowding. Soon, a real estate boom changed the city's character.

The boom ended with the East Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s, and the Port of Jakarta suffered from political tension, protests, and violence. The peak of the violence came in 1998 when security forces shot and killed four students at Trisakti University (Indonesian).

Riots followed, lasting four days during which as many as 1200 people were killed and some six thousand buildings in the Port of Jakarta were destroyed or damaged. President Suharto resigned. Since Suharto's resignation, the Port of Jakarta has been the focus of efforts to bring democratic changes to Indonesia, although violence has continued to some extent.

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