Batavia, Dutch East Indies  Batavia, also called Batauia in the city's Malay vernacular, was the capital of the Dutch East Indies. The area corresponds to present-day Jakarta, Indonesia. Batavia can refer to the city proper or its suburbs and hinterland, the Ommelanden, which included the much-larger area of the Residency of Batavia in the present-day Indonesian provinces of Jakarta, Banten and West Java. The founding of Batavia by the Dutch in 1619, on the site of the ruins of Jayakarta, led to the establishment of a Dutch colony; Batavia became the center of the Dutch East India Company's trading network in Asia. Monopolies on local produce were augmented by non-indigenous cash crops. To safeguard their commercial interests, the company and the colonial administration absorbed surrounding territory. Batavia is on the north coast of Java, in a sheltered bay, on a land of marshland and hills crisscrossed with canals. The city had two centers: Oud Batavia (the oldest part of the city) and the relatively-newer city, on higher ground to the south. It was a colonial city for about 320 years until 1942, when the Dutch East Indies was occupied by Japan during World War II. During the Japanese occupation and after Indonesian nationalists declared independence on 17 August 1945, the city was known as Jakarta. It was internationally known by its Dutch name until Indonesia achieved full independence in 1949, when the city was renamed Jakarta. Amsterdam merchants embarked on an expedition to the East Indies archipelago in 1595 under the command of Cornelis de Houtman. The English East India Company's first voyage in 1602, commanded by James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Bantam. There, Lancaster was allowed to build a trading post which was the center of English trade in Indonesia until 1682. The Dutch government granted the Dutch East India Company a monopoly on Asian trade in 1602. A year later, the first permanent Dutch trading post in Indonesia was established in Bantam, West Java. Prince Jayawikarta gave Dutch merchants permission to build a wooden warehouse and houses on the east bank of the Ciliwung River opposite Jayakarta in 1610, and the outpost was established the following year. As Dutch power increased, Jayawikarta allowed the English to build houses on the west bank of the Ciliwung and a fort near his customs office to maintain a balance of power.