History of Medan Indonesia

Medan Sumatera Utara

Medan City

Kota Medan is the 3rd biggest city in Indonesia. Located in North Sumatra ( Sumatera Utara ) of Indonesia with a population of 2.5 millions residents. It is said that during day time, the population of Medan City will grow to about 4 millions with people coming from suburbs.

The unique thing about Medan is that, it resides the largest volcanic lake in world known as Lake Toba which is twice the size of it neighboring country of Singapore.

History of Medan Indonesia

Medan started as a village called Kampung Medan (Medan Village). Kampung Medan was founded by Guru Patimpus around the 1590s. Because Medan Village sits on Tanah Deli (Land of Deli), Kampung Medan is also referred as Medan-Deli. The original location of Kampung Medan is an area where the Deli River meets Babura River.

Based on the diary of the Portuguese merchant in early 16th century, it stated that the name of Medan was actually derived from Medina which is actually a holy city in the western of Saudi Arabia. But, other sources indicated that the name of Medan actually came from Indian language “Meiden”. One of the Karo-Indonesia dictionary written by Darwin Prinst SH published in 2002 wrote that Medan could also be defined as “recover” or “be better”.

The first population of Medan came from the Batak Karo community. It was not until the Sultan of Aceh, Sultan Iskandar Muda, sent his warlord, Gocah Pahlawan Laksamana Khoja Bintan, to be the Sultanate of Aceh’s representative in Tanah Deli, that the Sultanate of Deli started to grow. This growth stimulated growth in both the population and culture of Kota Medan. In the second year reign of Sultan Deli (between 1669-1698), there was a cavalry battle in Medan.

Medan did not experience any huge development until the 1860s, when the Dutch colonialists began clearing the land for tobacco plantations. Medan quickly became a center of government and business activity, dominating development of Indonesia’s western region.

The Dutch governed Tanah Deli from 1658, after Sultan Ismail, ruler of the Kingdom of Siak Sri Indrapura, yielded some of his once-ruled land, Deli, Langkat, and Serdang. In 1915 Medan officially became the capital of North Sumatra Province, and officially a city in 1918.

With the largest volcanic lake in the world, The Legend of Lake Toba , Medan is a city worth visiting for your travel vacations in Asia Indonesia

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