Campus Life

South Sumatra Province is one of the oldest cities in the Republic of Indonesia which is counted at least 1337 years old if based on the relic site from the Sriwijaya kingdom inscription that has been found is the Kedukan Bukit inscription. physical evidence of the inscription from the history of these relics that have an age of 682 BC. In ancient times the Srivijaya rulers established Wanua in the area of ​​South Sumatra which is located in the city of Palembang. According to the topography of the city of Palembang is surrounded by water so that it is not uncommon for the city of Palembang to have many rivers and swamps. Even today Palembang City still has 52.24% of the land inundated by water (Stastik 1990 data), because of this condition, the ancestors of this city named the city as Pa-lembang in the Malay language Pa or Pe as a word indicating a place or situation. Whereas Lembang or Lembeng means low land, which is translated into the Malay language-Palembang is a pool of water so the origin of the name Palembang was formed from a place that was inundated by water.

So that the geographical location surrounded by water, the people of Palembang took advantage of their geographical location to make transportation facilities that were very vital, economical, and efficient in ancient times. Apart from that, the geographical location that benefits Palembang City is a very strategic layout of this city which covers a network capable of controlling traffic between three unified regions:

1.      The highlands of Western Sumatra, namely: the Bukit Barisan Mountains.

2.       Areas of foothills or piedmont and confluence of tributaries as they enter the lowlands.

3.       Northeast coastal area.

These three territorial units are local factors that are very decisive in the formation of civilizational cultural patterns. Local factors in the form of networks and high-frequency commodities have been established earlier and have succeeded in encouraging local people to create high-growth cultural patterns in South Sumatra. These local factors have made Palembang the capital of Sriwijaya, which was a political and economic force in classical times in the Southeast Asian region. The glory of Sriwijaya was taken by the Palembang Darusallam Sultanate during its middle age as a respected sultanate in the archipelago.
Sriwijaya, like other forms of government in Southeast Asia at that time, was known as Port-polity. The notion of Port-polity began simply as a redistribution center, gradually taking over a number of forms of increasing progress contained in the broad spectrum. The center of the growth of a Polity is an entreport that generates additional wealth and cultural contacts. These results were obtained by local leaders. (in Sriwijaya the term is datu), with this result is the basis for the use of economic power and political power in Southeast Asia.