The Dutch arrived in 1595 in search of spices and sandalwood and ejected the British who had already ousted the Portuguese. From 1602 the Dutch East India Company gradually conquered the area and held sway until its dissolution in 1798. The Dutch government assumed control in 1816 and ruled until 1941 when the Japanese occupation began. Until the establishment of Dutch colonial rule the region had never constituted a single political entity.
In 1945 an independent republic was declared but this was not recognized by the Dutch until they transferred sovereignty in 1949. Nevertheless, 17 August 1945 is celebrated as independence day.
A huge archipelago, Indonesia consists of the Greater Sunda Islands (southern Borneo (Kalimantan), Sulawesi, Java, and Sumatra), the Lesser Sunda Islands (the islands between Bali and Timor), the Moluccas (Maluku), and western New Guinea; together, they total 13 667 islands.
The name is probably derived from the Greek Indos Nesos ‘Indian Islands’, its modern name being coined in 1884 by a German geographer, although it did not come into more general use until the 1920s. Some of Indonesia's islands, notably the Moluccas and Sulawesi, were famous as the ‘Spice Islands’.
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