Riau Islands
The
Riau Islands (
Indonesian:
Kepulauan Riau (or
Kepri for short) or sometimes
Riau Kepulauan) is an Indonesian archipelago located south of
Singapore, off the eastern coast of
Riau province on
Sumatra island.
Originally part of the
Riau province, the Riau archipelago was split off as a separate
province in July
2004 with
Tanjung Pinang as its
capital.The archipelagos of
Anambas and
Natuna, located between mainland
Malaysia and
Borneo were attached to the new province.
By population, the most important Riau islands are
Bintan,
Batam and
Karimun. Sizewise, however, the sparsely populated
Natuna Islands are larger.
The official standard for Malay, as agreed upon by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, is
Bahasa Riau, the language of the Riau Archipelago, long considered the birthplace of the
Malay language.
From
Srivijayan times until the 16th century, Riau was a natural part of greater
Malay kingdoms or sultanates, in the heart of what is often called the
Malay World, which stretches from eastern Sumatra to Borneo. The Malay-related
Orang Laut tribes inhabited the islands and formed the backbone of most Malay kingdoms from Srivijaya to the
Sultanate of Johor for the control of trade routes going through the
straits.
After the fall of
Melaka in
1511, the Riau islands became the center of political power of the mighty Sultanate of Johor or
Johor-Riau, based on
Bintan island, and were for long considered the center of
Malay culture.
But history changed the fate of Riau as a political, cultural or economic center when European powers struggled to control the regional trade routes and took advantage of political weaknesses within the sultanate.
Singapore island, that had been for centuries part of the same greater Malay kingdoms and sultanates, and under direct control of the Sultan of
Johor, came under control of the British.
The creation of a European-controlled territory in the heart of the Johor-Riau natural boundaries broke the sultanate into two parts, destroying the cultural and political unity that had existed for centuries. The
Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 consolidated this separation, with the British controlling all territories north of the Singapore strait and the
Dutch controlling territories from Riau to
Java.
After the European powers withdrew from the region, the new independent governments had to reorganize and find balance after inheriting 400 years of colonial boundaries. Before finding their current status, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Borneo territories struggled and even came into military conflict against each other, and the Riau islands once again found themselves in the middle of regional struggle (see
Konfrontasi).
But the once strong cultural unity of the region with Riau in the heart of it never returned, and the line drawn by the British in 1819 remained, this time marking the divide between three new countries as of 1965: Singapore, the Malaysian federation in the north, and Indonesia in the south.
It is these new countries, however, which recreated unity in the Riau world for the first time after 150 years with the creation of the
Sijori Growth Triangle.
But while bringing back some economical wealth to Riau, the Sijori Growth Triangle somewhat further broke the cultural unity within the islands. With
Batam island receiving most of the industrial investments and dramatically developping into a regional industrial center, it attracted hundred of thousands of non-Malay Indonesian migrants, changing forever the demographic balance in the archipelago.
Today the name of Riau merely refers to this administrative region of Indonesia, a free trade zone heavily supported by Indonesian, Singaporean and international investments.
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