Pontianak Sultanate

The Pontianak Sultanate, formally the Kadriyah Sultanate, was an Arab-Malay state on the western coast of Borneo that existed from 1771 until its disestablishment in 1950. It was founded on 23 October 1771 by Syarif Abdurrahman al-Kadrie, a Hadhrami sayyid and trader who had married into the ruling houses of Mempawah and Banjar and who settled at the mouth of the Kapuas River on land ceded by the Sultan of Banten to the Dutch East India Company. The settlement around his palace grew into the town of Pontianak, which remained the seat of the sultans. The state controlled the lower Kapuas and its hinterland, drew revenue from trade, gold, jungle produce and river tolls, and became a Dutch ally and later a vassal as the colonial power extended its authority over West Kalimantan. The sultans retained local religious and customary authority under Dutch rule, and the Kadriyah dynasty survived the Japanese occupation of the 1940s. After the Indonesian revolution the sultanate was formally dissolved in 1950, when its territory was absorbed into the new republic and became part of West Kalimantan province.