BALI

Bali, one of the approximately 6,000 occupied islands that constitute the tropical nation of Indonesia, is far better known to the West than are most of Indonesia's other islands. The small but densely populated island (approximately 2.8 million residents) constitutes less than half of 1 percent of the entire nation's population.

Bali's tumultuous political history is known from written records of a series of dynasties dating back to the ninth century A.D. The island's past is strongly intertwined with that of its much larger neighbor, Java; over the centuries, the two islands have frequently been united under the same leader or kingdom. From the fifth century on, traders, priests, and adventurers sailing from India and China brought to Bali and Java a variety of Hindu and Buddhist ideas and practices that were adapted and assimilated into Balinese culture.

Europeans first encountered Bali in the late sixteenth century, during the era of European exploration of the seas and massive expansion of world trade networks. Dutch sailors landed in 1597, inaugurating Dutch involvement in the region's economy that eventuated in a brutal conquest of the islands that became the Dutch East Indies. During the second half-of the nineteenth century, as the Dutch gradually obliterated the royal Balinese courts, the Balinese actively resisted the colonizing force. The Dutch completed their conquest of the remaining independent region on Bali in 1908.