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3 days ago · Indonesia was formerly known as the Dutch East Indies (or Netherlands East Indies). Although Indonesia did not become the country’s official name until the time of independence, the name was used as early as 1884 by a German geographer; it is thought to derive from the Greek indos, meaning “India,” and nesos, meaning “island.”.
The Dutch East India Company (Old Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie ), or VOC, started in 1602, when the Netherlands gave a group of small trading companies a 21-year monopoly to trade in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock. [2] .
It has also been called the East Indies, the Indo-Australian Archipelago, Indonesian Archipelago and other names over time. The archipelago is between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The group has over 25,000 islands. It is the largest archipelago by area, and third by number of islands in the world.
