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The first great Indonesian empire, the Buddhist Srivijaya, was a maritime empire based around the port of Palembang in southeast Sumatra. The Srivijaya controlled the Straits of Malacca, the key to the crucial China-India trade route, from the 7th to the 13th centuries.

Influences from the Asian subcontinent continued to reach the archipelago, which became increasingly Indianized in culture and religion.

From A.D. 1294 to the 15th century, most of western Indonesia was controlled by the powerful East Java kingdom of Majapahit, the most famous of the archipelago's ancient kingdoms. Majapahit is thought to have exacted tribute from islands as far away as New Guinea.

A fisherman tries his luck off the dock at Ampenan, Lombok.

Islam and the Europeans

Beginning in the mid-13th century, Indonesian traders and rulers began converting to Islam, for both political and religious reasons. The biggest boost to Islamization of the archipelago came with the conversion of the ruler of Malacca, which sat in a very strategic position on the strait between Sumatra and peninsular Malaysia.