This highly urbanised area (largely suburban to Jakarta to its west) has an area of 1,151.53 km2 (444.61 sq mi) and contained 2,630,401 people at the 2010 Census[2] and 3,113,017 at the 2020 Census,[3] with an average density of 2,443.7 inhabitants per square kilometre (6,329/sq mi).

The earliest evidence of the existence of Bekasi dates from the 5th century according to the Tugu inscription, which describes the name of two rivers that run through the city, i.e. Candrabhaga and Gomati and one of those rivers, i.e. Candrabhaga is the origin of the name Bekasi where the name Candrabhaga evolved into Bhagasasi due to the Sanskrit word candra which means moon evolved into Old Javanese word ‘sasi’ which also means moon and then the name Bhagasasi was misspelled as Bhagasi and then Dutch colonial government also misspelled the name Bhagasi as Bacassie and finally it became Bekasi.

During the colonial era, Bekasi was dominated by particuliere landerijen ('private domains'; tanah partikelir) which came under the rule of Landheeren (landlords).

[4] The landlords could impose taxation (cuke), tribute (upeti) and force labor (rodi) on the inhabitants of their private estates.

[6] They ruled their extensive landholdings from their country house, landhuis Tamboen (now Gedung Juang Tambun).