A Short History of Bali for Curious Visitors

Bali's history is not locked away in museums. It shows in the layout of the villages, the names people carry, the temples on every hill and the way offerings are made each morning. Knowing even a little of it makes a temple visit or a drive through the east far more rewarding.

Here is a short, plain account of how Bali got here, from its first farmers to its first tourists, with the places where each chapter can still be seen. Dates for the early centuries come from inscriptions, chronicles and archaeology, and historians do not always agree, so treat the oldest ones as approximate.

First settlers and the Bali Aga

People lived on Bali long before written history, but the ancestors of today's Balinese were Austronesian-speaking farmers who arrived several thousand years ago, bringing rice growing and pottery. Roughly 2,000 years ago bronze working reached the island from mainland Southeast Asia. The most famous object from that era is the Moon of Pejeng, a huge bronze kettle drum kept in Pura Penataran Sasih in Pejeng, near Ubud, and often described as the largest drum of its kind cast in a single piece. Its exact age is still debated. Prehistoric burials from around the same period, some in stone sarcophagi, were found at Gilimanuk in the far west, where a small museum near the ferry port now protects the site.

The Bali Aga, or Bali Mula ("original Balinese"), are communities whose customs go back to before the Javanese influence described below. The best known are:

• Tenganan Pegringsingan in Karangasem, a walled village with its own strict customary law. It is famous for geringsing, a double ikat cloth in which both the warp and the weft are dyed before weaving. Double ikat is made in only three places in the world: here, India and Japan.
• Trunyan on the eastern shore of Lake Batur, reached by boat from Kedisan. Here some of the dead are neither cremated nor buried but laid out under the Taru Menyan tree, whose scent is said to mask any smell.
• Several villages in the hills of Buleleng in the north, such as Sidatapa and Pedawa.

These are living communities, not open-air museums. Go with a local guide, dress modestly, ask before photographing people, and treat the cemetery at Trunyan as you would any graveyard.

Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms

Indian religious ideas reached Bali through trade and through Java. The oldest written records are small Buddhist clay tablets from around the 8th century, and the Blanjong pillar in Sanur, inscribed in 914 under a king named Sri Kesari Warmadewa. It still stands in a small temple in Sanur and is one of the oldest dated inscriptions on the island.

The Warmadewa dynasty ruled from the area around Pejeng and Bedulu, east of Ubud. King Udayana married a Javanese princess, and their son Airlangga became one of the great kings of East Java in the 11th century, tying the two islands closely together. Three places in this old royal heartland are well worth a visit:

• Tirta Empul at Tampaksiring, a spring temple traditionally dated to 962, where Balinese still come to purify themselves.
• Goa Gajah, the Elephant Cave near Bedulu, generally dated to the 11th century, with both Hindu and Buddhist elements.
• Gunung Kawi, also 11th century, where shrines are carved into a river cliff and are thought to honour King Anak Wungsu and his family.

Majapahit and the Javanese nobility

In 1343 the East Javanese empire of Majapahit, under its famous chief minister Gajah Mada, conquered Bali and defeated its king at Bedulu. A Javanese-descended dynasty was installed, first at Samprangan and then at Gelgel, just south of today's Klungkung.

As Majapahit declined in the 15th and 16th centuries and Islam spread through Java, Balinese chronicles say that many Javanese nobles, priests and artists crossed to Bali. Historians argue over the details and the dates, but the influence is clear: court literature in Old Javanese, the stories of the shadow puppet theatre, much of the dance and music, and noble titles such as Ida Bagus or Anak Agung that you still hear today all draw on this world.

Gelgel's golden age came in the 16th century under King Dalem Waturenggong, whose rule reached Lombok, part of Sumbawa and the eastern tip of Java. His court priest, Dang Hyang Nirartha, came from Java and shaped Balinese religious practice. He introduced the padmasana, the empty stone throne for the supreme god found in temples across Bali, and tradition credits him with founding sea temples including Uluwatu and Tanah Lot. In Gelgel you can visit Pura Dasar Bhuana, the great temple of that period.

The kingdoms of Bali

In 1686 the royal seat moved from Gelgel to Klungkung (Semarapura). Its ruler, the Dewa Agung, kept the highest ritual rank, but real power was split between nine kingdoms: Klungkung, Karangasem, Buleleng, Jembrana, Tabanan, Mengwi, Badung, Gianyar and Bangli. Mengwi was divided up by its neighbours in the late 19th century. The other eight correspond closely to today's eight regencies, with Denpasar as a separate city.

Traces of this era are everywhere. In Klungkung, the Kertha Gosa, the old royal hall of justice, has a painted ceiling in the traditional Kamasan style. Taman Ayun in Mengwi, the royal temple of that kingdom, is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of 2012 for Bali's subak irrigation system. In Karangasem, the water palaces of Taman Ujung and Tirta Gangga were built by the last rajas in the 20th century.

Dutch colonisation and the puputan

Dutch ships first reached Bali in 1597, but for more than two centuries contact was mostly trade. In the 19th century, disputes over the Balinese custom of claiming the cargo of wrecked ships, and over Dutch claims to sovereignty, led to three military expeditions between 1846 and 1849 that brought the north under Dutch control. Singaraja became the colonial capital.

The south held out into the 20th century. After a dispute over a ship wrecked off Sanur in 1904, Dutch troops landed there in September 1906. On 20 September 1906 the raja of Badung, his family and his court, dressed in white and carrying their kris, walked out towards the Dutch guns rather than surrender. This was a puputan, a fight to the end. Estimates vary, but hundreds died. The ruler of Tabanan surrendered soon afterwards and died in captivity. On 28 April 1908 the Dewa Agung of Klungkung and his court made the same choice, and with that the whole of Bali came under Dutch rule.

Today Taman Puputan Badung, the square in central Denpasar, and the Puputan monument opposite the palace in Klungkung mark these events. Next to the Denpasar square is Museum Bali, which opened in 1932.

Artists, anthropologists and the first tourists

After the international reaction to the puputan, the colonial government began to present itself as the protector of Balinese culture, and small numbers of tourists arrived by steamship in the 1920s and 1930s. The German painter and musician Walter Spies settled in Ubud in 1927 at the invitation of the royal family, and the Dutch painter Rudolf Bonnet followed in 1929. In 1936 they founded the Pita Maha artists' association with Tjokorda Gde Agung Sukawati of Ubud and the Balinese artist I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, to support local painters and carvers. Spies is also linked with the kecak, which Balinese performers including Wayan Limbak developed from a trance ritual into a stage performance in the 1930s.

The anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, the composer Colin McPhee and the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias all spent time on the island, and their work shaped how the rest of the world imagined Bali. Museum Puri Lukisan in Ubud, founded in the 1950s, holds many works from this period.

Occupation, independence and a new province

Japanese forces landed on Bali in February 1942, and the occupation that lasted until 1945 was a hard time for many Balinese. Indonesia declared independence on 17 August 1945, but the Dutch returned. In Bali the armed resistance was led by I Gusti Ngurah Rai, who died with his men in the battle at Marga, Tabanan, on 20 November 1946, remembered as the Puputan Margarana. The airport bears his name and his portrait is on the 50,000 rupiah note. The Margarana memorial park at Marga, about 25 kilometres northwest of Denpasar, holds more than 1,300 memorial stones for those who fell.

The Netherlands recognised Indonesian sovereignty at the end of 1949. Bali became a province of its own on 14 August 1958, and in 1960 the provincial capital moved from Singaraja to Denpasar.

The 1960s: Agung erupts

In February 1963 Mount Agung, Bali's highest and holiest mountain, began to erupt. The large eruptions of 17 March and 16 May sent deadly flows of hot ash and gas down its slopes. An estimated 1,100 to 1,500 people died in those flows, and hundreds more were killed by mudflows afterwards. Lava stopped only metres from the mother temple of Besakih, which many Balinese saw as a sign. Many families lost their land and resettled on other islands. Two years later, the national political violence of 1965 and 1966 also reached Bali, a period many families still find painful to talk about.

From Sanur to mass tourism

In 1966 the ten-storey Bali Beach Hotel opened in Sanur, built with Japanese war reparation funds. It caused such unease that Bali later limited new buildings to roughly the height of a coconut palm, usually given as 15 metres, and it remains the tallest hotel on the island. In 1969 the expanded airport at Tuban was opened as Ngurah Rai International Airport, ready for jets. Kuta grew from a fishing village into a surf and backpacker centre in the 1970s, and Nusa Dua was planned from the early 1970s as a self-contained resort area, with its first hotels opening in the early 1980s.

Tourism has known hard years too. Bombings in Kuta in 2002 killed 202 people from many countries, and further attacks followed in 2005. The memorial on Jalan Legian in Kuta lists the names of the 2002 victims. Agung erupted again in 2017, and the pandemic closed the island to international tourists for most of 2020 and 2021. Each time, Bali came back.

A history trail you can follow

• Denpasar and Sanur: Museum Bali, Taman Puputan Badung, the Bajra Sandhi monument in Renon (opened in 2003, with dioramas of Bali's story from prehistory to independence) and the Blanjong pillar in Sanur.
• Around Ubud: Goa Gajah, Pura Penataran Sasih in Pejeng, Gunung Kawi, Tirta Empul, Puri Saren in central Ubud and Museum Puri Lukisan.
• East Bali: the Kertha Gosa and Puputan monument in Klungkung, Pura Dasar Bhuana in Gelgel, Tenganan, Taman Ujung, Tirta Gangga and Besakih.
• North Bali: Gedong Kirtya in Singaraja, a library of lontar palm-leaf manuscripts founded in 1928, and the Bali Aga villages in the hills.
• West and central Bali: Taman Ayun in Mengwi, the Margarana memorial in Tabanan, the Gilimanuk museum and Trunyan on Lake Batur.

For temples, bring a sarong and sash (most sites lend or rent them), cover your shoulders, and expect a small entrance fee or donation. Opening hours and fees change, so check before you go.