Aceh is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west, Strait of Malacca to the northeast, as well bordering the province of North Sumatra to the east, its sole land border, and shares maritime borders with Malaysia and Thailand to the east, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India to the north. Granted special autonomous status, Aceh is a religiously conservative territory, with the majority of its population being Muslim; it is the only Indonesian province to officially integrate Islamic law (). There are ten indigenous ethnic groups in this region, the largest being the Acehnese people, accounting for approximately 70% of the region's population of about 5.626 million people in mid 2025; it is projected to be 5,695,900 in mid 2026, increasing annually by about 1.24%. Its land area spans 56,834.75 km2.Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 27 February 2026, Provinsi Aceh Dalam Angka 2026 (Katalog-BPS 1102001.11)
Aceh is a provincial region that constitutes a unified legal community with a special status and is granted special authorities to regulate and manage its own governmental affairs and local interests in accordance with laws and regulations within the system and principles of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, based on the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, and is led by a governor.
Aceh is where the spread of Islam in Indonesia began. It was a key location for the spread of Islam in Southeast Asia more broadly. Islam reached Aceh (Kingdoms of Fansur and Lamuri) around 1250. In the early 17th century, the Aceh Sultanate was the wealthiest, most powerful, and most cultivated state in the Strait of Malacca. Aceh has a history of political independence and resistance to control by outsiders, including the former Dutch East Indies and later the Indonesian governments.
Aceh has substantial natural resources of oil and natural gas."How An Escape Artist Became Aceh's Governor" , Time, 15 February 2007 Aceh was the closest point of land to the epicenter of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which devastated much of the western coast of the province. Approximately 170,000 Indonesians were killed or went missing in the disaster.United Nations. Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2005. 2005, page 172 The disaster helped precipitate the peace agreement between the government of Indonesia and the separatist group of Free Aceh Movement.
Name Aceh was first known as Aceh Darussalam (1511–1945). Upon its formation in 1956 it bore the name Aceh before being renamed to the Daerah Istimewa Aceh (Special Region of Aceh; 1959–2001), Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (2001–2009), and back to Aceh (2009–present). In the past it was also spelled as Acheh, Atjeh, and Achin.
History Prehistory
According to several archaeological findings, the first evidence of human habitation in Aceh is from a site near the Tamiang River, where shell middens are present. Stone tools and faunal remains were also found on the site. Archeologists believe the site was first occupied around 10,000 BCE.
Pre-Islamic Aceh
The history of Aceh stretches back to the Lambri Kingdom. Several documented references indicate that Hindu-Buddhist culture existed in the area before its Islamization.
The people of Lambri were described by Marco Polo as "idolaters", who had a maharaja as their ruler (a king in the Hindu political structure), likely meaning they were Hindus, Buddhists, or a combination thereof.
The inscription at Tanjore of Rajendra I documents the conquest of a land called "llämuridesam", located at the northern tip of Sumatra. The Nagarakretagama documents the possessions of the Imperial Majapahit and states that it controls Barat (identified as the western coast of Aceh). Chinese records indicate that Aceh was under the control of the Sriwijaya.
Though many temples were left abandoned or converted into mosques, such as the Indrapuri Old Mosque, some evidence remains, such as the head of a stone sculpture of Avalokiteshvara Boddhisattva that was discovered in Aceh. Images of Amitabha Buddhas adorn his crown, facing forward and on each side. Srivijayan art estimated 9th-century CE collection of National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta. One of the few remaining structures is the Indra Patra fort, which houses several Hindu shrines. Historic names such as Indrapurba, Indrapurwa, Indrapatra, and Indrapuri, which refer to the god Indra, also indicate that Hinduism had a lasting and significant presence in this land.
Beginnings of Islam in Southeast Asia
Evidence concerning the arrival and subsequent establishment of Islam in Southeast Asia is thin and inconclusive. The historian Anthony Reid has argued that the region of the Cham people on the south-central coast of Vietnam was one of the earliest Islamic centers in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, as the Cham people fled the Vietnamese, one of the earliest locations where they established a relationship was with Aceh.Reid (1988 and 1993) It is thought that one of the earliest centers of Islam was in the Aceh region. When Venetian traveler Marco Polo passed by Sumatra on his way home from China in 1292, he found that Peureulak was a Muslim town while nearby "Basma(n)" and "Samara" were not. "Basma(n)" and "Samara" are often said to be Pasai and Samudra, but evidence is inconclusive. The gravestone of Sultan Malikussaleh, the first Muslim ruler of Samudra, has been found and is dated AH 696 (1297 CE). This is the earliest clear evidence of a Muslim dynasty in the Indonesia-Malay area, and more 13th-century gravestones show that this region continued under Muslim rule. Ibn Batutah, a Moroccan traveller, passing through on his way to China in 1345 and 1346, found that the ruler of Samudra was a follower of the Shafi'i school of Islam.Ricklefs (1991), page 4
After Islam first appeared in Aceh, it spread into the coastal regions by the 15th century. Aceh soon became a cultural and scholastic Islamic center throughout Southeast Asia. It also became wealthy because it was a center of extensive trade.
The Portuguese apothecary Tome Pires reported in his early 16th-century book Suma Oriental that most of the kings of Sumatra, from Aceh to Palembang, were Muslim. At Pasai, in what is now the North Aceh Regency, there was a thriving international port. Pires attributed the establishment of Islam in Pasai to the 'cunning' of the Muslim merchants. The ruler of Pasai, however, had not been able to convert the people of the interior.Ricklefs (1991), page 7
Sultanate of Aceh
The Sultanate of Aceh was established by Sultan Ali Mughayat Syah in 1511. In 1584–88, the bishop of Malacca, D. João Ribeiro Gaio, based on information provided by a former captive called Diogo Gil, wrote the "Roteiro das Cousas do Achem" (Lisboa 1997)—a description of the sultanate.
Later, during its golden era, in the 17th century, its territory and political influence expanded as far as Satun in southern Thailand, Johor in Malay Peninsula, and Siak in what is today the province of Riau. As was the case with most non-Javan pre-colonial states, Acehnese power expanded outward by sea rather than inland. As it expanded down the Sumatran coast, its main competitors were Johor and Portuguese Malacca on the other side of the Straits of Malacca. It was this seaborne trade focus that led Aceh to rely on rice imports from north Java rather than develop self-sufficiency in rice production.Ricklefs (1991), page 17
After the Portuguese occupation of Malacca in 1511, many Islamic traders passing the Malacca Straits shifted their trade to Banda Aceh and increased the Acehnese rulers' wealth. During the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda in the 17th century, Aceh's influence extended to most of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. Aceh allied itself with the Ottoman Empire and the Dutch East India Company in their struggle against the Portuguese and the Johor Sultanate. Acehnese military power waned gradually thereafter, and Aceh ceded its territory of Pariaman in Sumatra to the Dutch in the 18th century.*D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-east Asia. London: Macmillan, 1955.
By the early 19th century, however, Aceh had become an increasingly influential power due to its strategic location for controlling regional trade. In the 1820s, it was the producer of over half the world's supply of black pepper. The pepper trade produced new wealth for the sultanate and for the rulers of many smaller nearby ports that had been under Aceh's control, but were now able to assert more independence. These changes initially threatened Aceh's integrity, but a new Sultan, Tuanku Ibrahim, who ruled from 1838 to 1870, reasserted control over nearby ports.Ricklefs, M.C. (2001) A History of Modern Indonesia Since c. 1200. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p 185–188.
Under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, the British ceded their colonial possessions on Sumatra to the Dutch. In the treaty, the British described Aceh as one of their possessions, although they had no actual control over the sultanate. Initially, under the agreement, the Dutch agreed to respect Aceh's independence. In 1871, however, the British dropped previous opposition to a Dutch invasion of Aceh, possibly to prevent France or the United States from gaining a foothold in the region. Although neither the Dutch nor the British knew the specifics, there had been rumors since the 1850s that Aceh had been in communication with the rulers of France and of the Ottoman Empire.
Aceh War
Pirates operating from Aceh threatened commerce in the Strait of Malacca; the sultan was unable to control them. Britain was a protector of Aceh and permitted the Netherlands to eradicate the pirates. The campaign quickly drove out the sultan, but the local leaders mobilized and fought the Dutch in four decades of guerrilla war, with high levels of atrocities. The Dutch colonial government declared war on Aceh on 26 March 1873. Aceh sought American help, but Washington rejected the request.
The Dutch tried one strategy after another over the course of four decades. An expedition under Major General Johan Harmen Rudolf Köhler in 1873 occupied most of the coastal areas. Köhler's strategy was to attack and take the sultan's palace. It failed. The Dutch then tried a naval blockade, reconciliation, concentration within a line of forts, and lastly passive containment. They had scant success. Reaching 15 to 20 million guilders a year, the heavy spending for failed strategies nearly bankrupted the colonial government.E.H. Kossmann, The Low Countries 1780–1940 (1978) pp 400–401 During the course of the war, the Dutch set up the Gouvernment of Atjeh and Dependencies under a governor, although it did not establish wider control of its territory until after 1908.https://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=hist_facpubs
The Aceh army was rapidly modernized, and Aceh soldiers killed Köhler. Köhler made some grave tactical errors, and the reputation of the Dutch was severely harmed. In recent years, in line with expanding international attention to human rights issues and atrocities in war zones, there has been increasing discussion about some of the recorded acts of cruelty and slaughter committed by Dutch troops during the period of warfare in Aceh.Linawati Sidarto, "Images of a grisly past", The Jakarta Post: Weekender, July 2011