Demak Regency

Precolonial period

The area was a part of the Majapahit Empire during its zenith around the 14th century. The city itself was founded sometime in the late fifteenth century, possibly by a Chinese whose descendant later became the Sultans of Demak. The first Sultan was known as Raden Patah, who was a vassal of Majapahit until 1478.^[3] The city was founded as a seaport, next to the now-nonexistent Muria Palaeostrait separating Java from Muria Island (now Mount Muria), although silting has now entirely turned the waterway into land.^[4] The Sultanate expanded in the expense of the declining Majapahit and its fragments, conquering the coastal region of Tuban around 1527 and reaching inland areas as far as Malang by 1546.^[3] As the capital, the city became an important center for trade and the spread of Islam across the island, and a base of the semi-apocryphal Wali Sanga. Upon the decline of the Sultanate, the region was conquered in turn by the Pajang and Mataram Sultanates.^[5] The seaport began to silt sometime in the 17th century, diminishing the region's importance as a seaport.

Semarang Residency in 1889. Demak is the area with the coastline facing northwest towards the Java Sea.

Dutch East Indies Era

Direct VOC presence in Java started upon their capture of Jayakarta (now Jakarta, then Batavia) on 1619. In the 18th century, a massacre of ethnic Chinese in Batavia triggered a war between VOC and Mataram, resulting in the latter's defeat and cession of the north coast of Java, including Demak, to VOC.^[6] Upon the latter's dissolution on late 1799, administration of the area along with the rest of VOC's territory was transferred to the Dutch Government while Mataram was reduced to several fragmented states in the south coast of Java, including Yogyakarta and Surakarta.

As part of Dutch East Indies, Demak was organized with nearby Semarang into Residentie Semarang as the Demak Regency^[7] and later into Central Java province upon the independence of Indonesia.