Medan is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra. A regional hub and financial centre of Sumatra. According to the National Development Planning Agency, Medan is one of the four main central cities of Indonesia, alongside Jakarta, Surabaya, and Makassar. As of the 2020 Census, Medan has a population of 2,435,252 within its city limits, and over 3.4 million in its built-up urban area, making it the fourth largest urban area in Indonesia. The Medan metropolitan area—which includes neighbouring Binjai, Deli Serdang Regency, and a part of Karo Regency—is the largest metropolitan area outside of Java, with 4,744,323 residents counted in the 2020 Census. Medan is a multicultural metropolis and a busy trading city bordered by the Strait of Malacca, making it one of the major economic cities in Indonesia. A gateway to the western part of Indonesia, Medan is supported by the Port of Belawan and Kualanamu International Airport, both of which are connected to the city centre via toll roads and railways.
North Sumatra is a province of Indonesia located on the northern part of the island of Sumatra. Its capital and largest city is Medan. North Sumatra is Indonesia's fourth most populous province after West Java, East Java and Central Java, and also the most populous in the island of Sumatra. It covers an area of 72,981 km2. According to the 2020 census, the province's population in that year was 14,799,361. The mid-2021 official estimate is 14,936,148.
The Netherlands Trading Society was a Dutch trading and financial company, established in 1824 in The Hague by King William I to promote and develop trade, shipping and agriculture. For the next 140 years the NHM developed a large international branch network and increasingly engaged in banking operations. In 1964 it merged with Twentsche Bank to form Algemene Bank Nederland, itself a predecessor of ABN AMRO.
Soewondo Air Force Base is currently the military airbase of Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Before 2013, this airport served commercial flights, and was known as Polonia International Airport which was the principal airport that served Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, about 2 km from the downtown, and used to serve flights to several Indonesian and Malaysian cities, along with a flight to Singapore and Thailand. Previous international flights had been opened to Hong Kong, Taipei, Amsterdam, Phuket, Chennai, Johor Bahru, Malacca and Ipoh.
The Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland or SMN, also known as the Netherland Line or Nederland Line, was a Dutch shipping line that operated from 1870 until 1970, when it merged with several other companies to form what would become Royal Nedlloyd.
Sultanate of Deli was a 1,820 km² Malay state in east Sumatra founded in 1630. A tributary kingdom from 1630 it was controlled by various Sultanates until 1814, when it became an independent sultanate and broke away from the Sultanate of Siak.
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Dutch government in 1800.
Tjong A Fie, Majoor der Chinezen (1860–1921), or Tjong Yiauw Hian, birth name Zhang Hongnan, was a Hakka Chinese businessman, banker and kapitan who built a large plantation business in Sumatra, Indonesia. Tjong A Fie built his business that employed more than 10,000 labor workers. Because of his great success, he maintained a good relationship with the ruler of Deli, including the ninth Sultan of Deli, Sultan Ma'mun Al Rashid Perkasa Alamyah and Dutch authorities.
Kristen Feilberg or Christen Schjellerup Feilberg (1839–1919) was an early Danish photographer who is known mainly for his images captured far beyond the borders of Denmark. From the 1860s until the 1890s, Feilberg participated in expeditions to Sumatra, Singapore, and Penang. In 1867, he exhibited photos at the Paris World Exposition and around 1870 he joined an expedition to the Batak lands of North Sumatra with the Dutch explorer C. de Haan from which he returned with 45 successful "photogrammes".
The colonial architecture of Indonesia refers to the buildings that were created across Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period, during that time, this region was known as the Dutch East Indies. These types of colonial era structures are more prevalent in Java and Sumatra, as those islands were considered more economically significant during the Dutch imperial period. As a result of this, there is a large number of well preserved colonial era buildings that are still densely concentrated within Indonesian cities in Java and Sumatra to this day.
Tamil Indonesians are persons from Indian Tamil ancestry living in Indonesia. Majority of them live in Medan in North Sumatra while there are small community in other parts of the country such as Jakarta, Aceh, Riau and Riau Islands. It is estimated that there are around 25,000 PIOs/NRIs living in Indonesia of which the Indian expatriate community registered with the Embassy and Consulate in Medan numbers around 30,000.
Grand Mosque of Medan or Masjid Raya Al-Mashun is a mosque located in Medan, Indonesia. The mosque was built in the year 1906 and completed in 1909. In beginning of its establishment, the mosque was a part of the Maimun palace complex. Its architectural style combines Middle Eastern, Indian and Spanish elements. The mosque has an octagonal shape and has wings to the south, east, north and west.
Jacob Nienhuys was the founder of tobacco producer Deli Company on a plantation established on a land concession from the Sultanate of Deli in Sumatra during the era of the Dutch East Indies. He returned to the Netherlands after he was indicted over the death of 7 plantation workers. Jacob Theodoor Cremer took over administration of the company and Nienhuys maintained a role at the company becoming a very wealthy man as the company grew and its stock price increased.
N.V. Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij, was a private railway company that operated near the east coast of Sumatra around Deli. The Deli Company established itself as a tobacco plantation and then expanded into tea, rubber and timber products. The company was founded in 1883. Routes were built in cape gauge. It was the last remaining private Dutch railway when it was taken over by the state network Indonesian Railway Company in 1957.
Leendert (Leen) Konijn was a Dutch rubber planter (1920-1930) and entrepreneur in the cultivation of navel oranges and various citrus fruits at Lao Kawar, Mount Sinabung, North Sumatra, Dutch East Indies (1932-1942).
As a continuation of the existing warehouses in the center of Amsterdam, around 1900 several new warehouses were built near the IJ bay. Most of these warehouses were converted into apartments at the end of 20th century.
Pewarta Deli was a Malay language newspaper published in Medan, Dutch East Indies from 1910 until 1941, and again from 1945–6. During its run the paper became a strident anti-colonial voice, sympathetic to the Sarekat Islam and Indonesian nationalism and critical of the cruelty of big business in Medan's tobacco and plantation industries. It also gave space in its pages to Communism and Islamic modernism. The paper had a wide readership in its time, with an influence not only in the Indies, but also among Malays in British Malaya.
Tjong Yong Hian (1850–1911) was a Hakka Chinese businessman and kapitan who had a great contribution to the development of society in the city of Medan around the early 1900s, he is also brother of Tjong A Fie, the successor kapitan after him.
The Nederlandsch-Indische Escompto Maatschappij was a significant Dutch bank, founded in 1857 in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. In the first half of the 20th century, it was the smallest of the “big three” commercial banks, behind the Netherlands Trading Society and the Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank, that dominated the Dutch East Indies’ financial system alongside the note-issuing Bank of Java.
Fieldworkers with an ox cart and steam plow
Deli Company experimental station in Medan (1919)
Headquarters in Medan circa 1925
Director's house at the experimental station (1927)
Chinese laborers, photo by Kristen Feilberg
Workers
Administrator Nieuwenhuis
H. Ingerman, principal administrator from 1897 to 1901 at the Deli Company
Portrait of the administrator Van Tijen, who served from 1911-1916, with his spouse
Portrait of a "hoofdschrijver", head clerk, with his wife circa 1900
Employees in Medan (1921)
