Japanese migration to Indonesia
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 11,263 (October 2009) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Jakarta, Bali | |
| Languages | |
| Various languages of Indonesia, Japanese | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Japanese diaspora | |
|
The population figure quoted includes Japanese nationals only. |
Large-scale Japanese migration to Indonesia dates back to the late 19th century, though there was limited trade contact between Indonesia and Japan as early as the 17th century. There is a large population of Japanese expatriates in Indonesia, estimated at 11,263 people as of October 2009[update]. At the same time, there are also identifiable populations of descendants of early migrants, who may be referred to as Nikkei Indonesians or Indonesian Nikkei.
Prior to the Tokugawa shogunate's establishment of their isolationist sakoku policy, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) were known to use Japanese mercenaries to enforce their rule in the Maluku Islands. One of Indonesia's early residents of Japanese descent was Saartje Specx, the daughter of Dutch colonial governor Jacques Specx, who ruled Batavia (present-day Jakarta) from 1629 to 1632. 1898 colonial government statistics showed 614 Japanese in the Dutch East Indies (166 men, 448 women).
As the Japanese population grew, a Japanese consulate was established in Batavia in 1909, but for the first several years its population statistics were rather haphazard. Their reports showed 782 registered Japanese migrants in Batavia in 1909 (with estimates that there were another 400 unregistered), and 278 (57 men, 221 women) in Medan in 1910. Between ca. 1872 and 1940 large numbers of Japanese prostitutes (karayuki-san) worked in brothels of the archipelago. Beginning in the late 1920s, Okinawan fishermen began to settle in north Sulawesi. There was a Japanese primary school at Manado, which by 1939 had 18 students. In total, 6,349 Japanese people lived in Indonesia by 1938. After the end of the 1942-1945 Japanese occupation of Indonesia, roughly 3,000 Imperial Japanese Army soldiers chose to remain in Indonesia and fight alongside local people against the Dutch colonists in the Indonesian National Revolution; roughly one-third were killed (among whom many are buried in the Kalibata Heroes Cemetery), while another one-third chose to remain in Indonesia after the fighting ended.
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