Gula Java - The Maps

In the days of the Dutch East Indies, much information about the sugar mills was published including (over the years) maps showing their locations. The mills were allocated numbers starting from the east end of the island and I have used these numbers on the maps that follow because this feature is part of a long-term project to gather data on the history of the mills in general. Note that Semboro was numbered 9b because it had not been constructed at the time the numbering system was adopted.

I have included all mills operating in 1970, the last to reopen a few year before being Ceper. Subsequently a number have been closed but these are not shown as such as I am sure more will follow. The map I used to prepare those that follow showed no less than 179 mills. However, within a few years most had closed never to reopen as the market for sugar slumped. Virtually all the mills featured on this feature are on the 1930 map. The exception is Madukismo near Yogyakarta which was constructed by (the then) East Germany in the 1950s. Not shown are the two mills at Jatitujuh and Subang in West Java which were new in the 1970s.

The maps include the railways as they existed historically since their development and that of the sugar mills were inextricably linked. Of the pre-Second War mills covered here, almost all had a connection to the main railway, either directly or by a short branch or by a special narrow gauge link. The exceptions were De Maas (bags of sugar were taken out by lighter from a nearby beach) and Asembagus (narrow gauge trainloads were, and still are, taken out to the nearby port of Jangkar for transporting to the island of Madura).