The Dutch East India Company and Batavia (1619–1799)

Abstract

Until now it has only been partly explained what the causes and origins were of the insalubrious conditions at Batavia that forced the Dutch to move their headquarters from the coast a few miles inland by the end of the 18th century.
 Bad climate, a town lay-out unsuited to the Tropics and natural disasters are the current arguments. In this article it is suggested that the port city's downfall was rather the result of a combination of bad management—during the VOC period Batavia always remained a tool of the Company—and the rash and thoughtless development of the Batavian hinterland, the Ommelanden. A set of demographic charts published here for the first time clearly reflects the downward trend starting from the 1730s. Institutional and ecological factors were the main reasons for the city's demise only a few years after the Company itself had collapsed.