situated at the political border of central java province and west java province, this second largest city in west java province after bandung is also adopting the cultures from both side. the cirebon people barely speaks three languages the javanese as the central javanese and sundanese as the western javanese. the third language is the indonesian language, as the national language.
as an old harbor city the people of this city are mixed of many ethnics group; javanese, sundanese, malay, chinese and arabic. but however most cirebonese are still considering them self as 'wong jawa', means the javanese.

my trip to cirebon was a favor to my dutch friend, marcel. his late father and grand father was born, brought up and worked in that once a netherland indie main port city. but however he has no clue about the city at all, so he asked me to take some images of it. and i was pleased to have another reason to visit the city. eventually i had been planing to visit city since i read the tara sosrowardoyo and peter schopert's architecture book called the java style. the unique architecture of the city and especially the palace was the legacy of a long international relation with the chinese, arabic, hindu and dutch.

the port of cirebon was established by the dutch east india company in 1865, principally as an export point for spices, sugar cane and raw materials from west java. warehouses and open storage areas were developed by 1890, and a british american tobacco cigarette factory was built in the early twentieth century.