Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ZOOM
LEFT
ZOOM
RIGHT
Brief history
Until the early twentieth century, control of the city - then known as
Badung
, like the re-
gency it governed - was divided among several rajas, most notably those at the courts of Pe-
mecutan (southwest Denpasar) and Kesiman (east Denpasar). Supremacy was wrested from
them, however, by the insatiably expansionist Dutch. On the pretext of alleged piracy in Sa-
nur, the colonizers marched on the raja on September 20, 1906, and massacred the local court.
After Indonesia won independence in 1949, the island's administrative
capital
was moved to
Badung from the north-coast town of Singaraja and the city was renamed Denpasar. Almost
fifty years later Denpasar's status was upgraded again when, in 1992, it became a self-gov-
erning municipality, no longer under the auspices of Badung district.
