Lampung

Lampung, officially the Province of Lampung, is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the southern tip of the island of Sumatra. It has a short border with the province of Bengkulu to the northwest, and a longer border with the province of South Sumatra to the north, as well as a maritime border with the provinces of Banten and Jakarta to the east. It is the home of the Lampung people, who speak their own language and possess their own written script. Its capital city is Bandar Lampung.
The province covers a land area of 33,570.26 km² and had a population of 7,608,405 at the 2010 census, 9,007,848 at the 2020 census, and 9,419,580 according to the official estimates for mid-2024, with three-quarters of that being descendants of Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese migrants from Java and Bali islands. These migrants came from more densely populated islands in search of available land, as well as being part of the national government's Indonesian transmigration program, of which Lampung was one of the earliest and most significant transmigration destinations. The provincial population continues to rise by over 100,000 per year.
In 1883, the volcano of Krakatoa, located on an island in the Sunda Strait, erupted into becoming one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history, with disastrous consequences for the area and elsewhere, including estimates of human fatalities in the tens of thousands and worldwide temperature and other weather effects for years.

Etymology

The etymology of Lampung is unknown. Early Chinese sources mention kingdoms and locations in insular Southeast Asia that have been equated to Lampung. In the mid-5th century CE, a Southeast Asian kingdom named P'o-Huang sent missions to the Chinese Song emperors. While its location is uncertain, by the 10th century, the geographical treatise Taiping Huanyu Ji mentions a place name of To-Lang-P'u-Huang. Gabriel Ferrand and O.W. Wolters posited it may refer to the same place rendered as Tulang Bawang in modern-day Indonesian, being the present-day name of a river and two regencies in Lampung province.
J.V.G. Mills of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society equated Lampung with a kingdom he transliterated as Lan-Pang that is mentioned in the Yingya Shenglan, a 1451 Chinese travelogue describing Zheng He's voyages in Southeast Asia.
All these interpretations indicate that both Lampung and Tulang Bawang may ultimately derive from the same ancient root and have been in use since at least the 5th century CE. Both the terms lampung and tulang bawang have a distinct meaning in modern Indonesian, with the term lampung meaning "to float", while the term "tulang bawang" means "onion bone", but it is highly probable their etymological origin is entirely unrelated to these modern-day renditions.
Folk etymology connects the name Lampung to the Batak language word lappung, meaning 'big' or 'large', and tells the anecdotal myth of an volcanic eruption of Mount Marapi so enormous that it could be seen from the top of Mount Pesagi, where a witness loudly proclaimed "lappung, lappung, lappung". The region surrounding Mount Pesagi was then named Lappung after this exclamation, eventually becoming Lampung.

History

Early history

Lampung came under the reign of the burgeoning Sumatra-based Buddhist Srivijaya empire in the late 7th century CE. Stone inscriptions dated to c. 680 CE were found in the villages of Palas Pasemah and Bungkuk, respectively. These inscriptions are shortened versions of the Telaga Batu inscription, which itself was found in the capital of Srivijaya, the modern-day city of Palembang in the South Sumatra province. Historians interpret the two finds in Lampung as indicative of Srivijaya-aligned coastal settlements near the mouth of the Sekampung River on Lampung’s East coast, and that this area presented the Southernmost extend of Srivijaya’s power at that time.
Inscriptions from later periods of Srivijaya were also found. A Buddhist inscription written in Sanskrit and dated to the 9th century CE was found in Batu Bedil, while two 10th-century inscriptions written in Old Malay were found in Ulu Belu and Hujung Langit, the latter specifically dated to 997 CE. All three of these inscriptions use a paleo-Javanese script, indicative of a growing Javanese influence on the area towards the end of the 1st Millennium CE. Similarly, at Jepara on the banks of Lake Ranau lie the foundations of a small stone temple, reminiscent of Javanese temples from the 9th and 10th century. There is archaelogical evidence that the Java-based Majapahit kingdom, which existed from the late 13th to the early 16th century, had a presence in Lampung.

Colonial era

The area that constitutes the modern-day province of Lampung was sparsely populated and did not constitute a politically unified territory until the colonial era. The region's pepper production drew the attention of various powers which laid claim to different parts of the region and its produce. The largest part, namely Lampung's Southern and Eastern coasts, were brought under the reign of the Banten Sultanate by its first Islamic ruler, Maulana Hasanuddin. The northern part was at times claimed by the rivalling Palembang Sultanate, while the nearly uninhabited Western coastal regions beyond the Barisan Mountains were part of British Bencoolen from the 1680's until 1824.
From 1619 on, under the rule of Pangeran Ratu, Lampung's pepper could only by purchased by foreigners through the court of Banten, while under Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa, the pepper trade was entirely monopolized and Lampung's pepper production had to be channelled through the sultan's court in its entirety. In the 1930s, Lampung still accounted for 30% of the world's pepper production.
The Dutch began to control the Lampung spice trade under Sultan Haji. The area was part of the Banten Sultanate until it was annexed by the Dutch in 1752, when it became known as the Residentie Lampoengse Districten. It became part of the Dutch East Indies.
By 1845, the total population of Lampung was 104,200 people, living mostly in small towns and settlements near the Southern and Eastern coasts and along the larger, navigable rivers. Other parts of the region, such as the mountainous Western parts or the upriver areas in the North, were nearly uninhabitated. Ethnically, almost all inhabitants were Lampung people. Beginning in 1905, under Dutch rule, transmigration programs were implemented. This program involved the migration of several hundred thousand people from Java to Lampung over several decades. Many Javanese moved to the transmigration sites located in the eastern region of Lampung. The program was expanded after Indonesian independence in the 1960s. The Javanese quickly came to outnumber the indigenous Lampung people and became the largest ethnic group in Lampung. The Lampung people, who had constituted almost 100% of the population in the mid-1800's, had fallen to around 70% by 1920, and eventually to less than 15% by the mid-1980's, a proportion that has remained stable to this day.

After independence

Provinsi Lampung was created on 18 March 1964 with the implementation of the Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 3/1964, later becoming Undang-undang Nomor 14 Tahun 1964. The province broke away from South Sumatra, and Kusno Danupoyo became its first governor.

Geography

Lampung Province has an area of, about the same size as the nation of Moldova or Russia's Bryansk Oblast. The province borders the Sunda Strait to the southeast and the Java Sea to the east. There are a number of offshore islands within Lampung Province, such as Legundi, Krakatoa, and Tabuan. These islands are located mostly in the Bay of Lampung. Pisang Island lies at the entrance to the Regency of West Lampung. There are 172 islands considered to be part of the province that have names.
The highest mountain in Lampung is Mount Pesagi, standing at above sea level in West Lampung. The river Way Sekampung is the longest river in the province, at with a catchment area of. Mount Krakatau is a volcanic caldera located in the Sunda Strait, close to the Lampung province. The Krakatoa erupted from 20 May until 21 October 1883, which caused landslides, producing high waves in the coastal area of Lampung.
Between 1969 and 1970, the total area of forest land in Lampung that had been used was 249,200 hectares. In 2000, there were 48 permits issued; in 1980, the number reached 76 permits. The topography of the region in the western part is mostly hilly, while the eastern part is mostly a lowland area that is agricultural and swampy. In 1950, nine specimens per 100 square kilometres in Lampung were collected as part of botanical research.

Government and administrative divisions

Lampung Province, which was formed from the southern portion of South Sumatra Province in 1964, was initially composed of just three regencies : Lampung Selatan, Lampung Tengah and Lampung Utara. A fourth regency was created on 16 August 1991 from part of Lampung Utara, and on 3 January 1997, two further regencies were created: Tanggamus from part of Lampung Selatan and Tulang Bawang from part of Lampung Utara.
On 20 April 1999, two additional regencies were formed: Lampung Timur from part of Lampung Tengah and Way Kanan from part of Lampung Utara, as well as a second autonomous city, Metro, from another part of Lampung Tengah. A ninth regency was created on 17 July 2007 from a part of Lampung Selatan.
On 29 October 2008, three more regencies were formed: Mesugi and Tulang Bawang Barat from parts of Tulang Bawang Regency, and Pringsewu from part of Tanggamus Regency. A thirteenth regency was formed on 25 October 2012 from the west coast part of Lampung Barat Regency. These are all listed below with their revised areas and their populations at the 2010, 2020 and at the mid-2024 official estimates.

Area code	Name of city or regency	Area	Population census 2010	Population census 2020	Population estimate mid-2024	Capital	HDI 2018
18.71	Bandar Lampung City	183.75	881,801	1,166,066	1,214,330	Bandar Lampung	0.766
18.72	Metro City	73.21	145,471	168,676	175,710	Metro	0.762
18.02	Central Lampung Regency	4,559.57	1,170,717	1,460,045	1,525,090	Gunung Sugih	0.697
18.07	East Lampung Regency	3,860.92	951,639	1,110,340	1,153,770	Sukadana	0.690
18.11	Mesuji Regency	2,200.41	187,407	227,518	241,600	Mesuji	0.628
18.03	North Lampung Regency	2,669.30	584,277	633,099	659,890	Kotabumi	0.671
18.09	Pesawaran Regency	1,288.08	398,848	477,468	500,300	Gedong Tataan	0.649
18.10	Pringsewu Regency	617.19	365,369	405,466	424,680	Pringsewu	0.694
18.01	South Lampung Regency	2,227.38	912,490	1,064,301	1,119,310	Kalianda	0.678
18.06	Tanggamus Regency	2,947.59	536,613	640,275	670,370	Kota Agung	0.656
18.05	Tulang Bawang Regency	3,116.06	397,906	430,021	450,340	Menggala	0.677
18.08	Way Kanan Regency	3,522.11	406,123	473,575	497,260	Blambangan Umpu	0.666
18.04	West Lampung Regency	2,107.99	277,296	302,139	315,920	Liwa	0.667
18.13	Pesisir Barat Regency	2,939.60	141,741	162,697	172,320	Krui	0.629
18.12	West Tulang Bawang Regency	1,257.09	250,707	286,162	298,700	Panaragan Jaya	0.653
	Total Province	33,570.26	7,608,405	9,007,848	9,419,580	Bandar Lampung	0.690

The province has two of Indonesia's 84 national electoral districts to elect members to the People's Representative Council. The Lampung I Electoral District consists of 6 of the regencies in the province, together with the cities of Bandar Lampung and Metro, and elects 10 members to the People's Representative Council. The Lampung II Electoral District consists of the remaining 7 regencies and likewise elects 10 members to the People's Representative Council.
In 2024, the General Elections Commission determined 85 legislative candidates for the Lampung Province DPRD for the 2024–2029 period. The political party Gerindra Party has the most seats, winning 16 seats.