Bengkulu is a province of Indonesia

Bengkulu

Bengkulu is a province of Indonesia. It is on the southwest coast of the island of Sumatra, and borders the provinces of West Sumatra, Jambi, South Sumatra and Lampung. The province also includes Enggano Island. The capital and largest city is Bengkulu city.
It was formerly the site of a British garrison, which they called Bencoolen.
The English East India Company established a pepper-trading center and garrison at Bengkulu in 1685. In 1714 the British built Fort Marlborough in the city, which still stands. The trading post was never profitable for the British, being hampered by a location which Europeans found unpleasant, and by an inability to find sufficient pepper to buy. It became an occasional port of call for the EIC's East Indiamen.
Despite these difficulties, the British persisted, maintaining their presence for roughly 140 years before ceding it to the Dutch as part of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 to focus attention on Malacca. Bengkulu remained part of the Dutch East Indies until the Japanese occupation in World War 2.
During Sukarno's imprisonment by the Dutch in the early 1930s, the future 1st president of Indonesia lived briefly in Bengkulu. Here he met his wife, Fatmawati, who bore him several children, including the 1st female President of Indonesia, Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Bengkulu lies near the Sunda Fault and is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. In June 2000, an earthquake killed at least 100 people. A recent report predicts that Bengkulu is "at risk of inundation over the next few decades from undersea earthquakes predicted along the coast of Sumatra" A series of earthquakes struck Bengkulu during September 2007, killing 13 people.

The 2010 census 1,800,500. including 875,663

reported a population of males and 837,730.

Bengkulu Province is subdivided into nine regencies and the independent city of Bengkulu, which lies outside any regency. The regencies and city are listed below with their populations at the 2010 Census.
Three active coal mining companies produce between 200,000 and 400,000 tons of coal per year, which is exported to Malaysia, Singapore, South Asia, and East Asia. Fishing, particularly tuna and mackerel, is an important activity. Agricultural products exported by the province include ginger, bamboo shoots, and rubber.

Related Sites for Bengkulu

• Rakyat Bengkulu Online read Bengkulu
• Bencoolen - Bengkulu Tourism - Travel to Indonesia : Maps - … read Bengkulu
• Bengkulu Map - Peta Bengkulu - Indonesia Tourism read Bengkulu
• Bengkulu (province, Indonesia) -- Encyclopedia Britannica read Bengkulu