Regency (Indonesia)

A regency (Indonesian: kabupaten[a]), sometimes incorrectly referred to as a district,[b] is an administrative division of Indonesia, directly under a province and on the same level with city (kota).

[5][6][7] They were not, strictly speaking, "native rulers" because the Dutch claimed full sovereignty over their territory, but in practice, they had many of the attributes of petty kings, including elaborate regalia and palaces and a high degree of impunity.

[13][14][15] The relationship between those sides was ambivalent: while legal and military power rested with the Dutch government (or, for a long time, with the Dutch East India Company) under a Governor General in Batavia on Java, the regents held higher protocollary rank than the assistant-resident who supposedly advised them and held day-to-day sway over the population.

[16] After the independence of Indonesia in 1945, the terms bupati and kabupaten were applied throughout the archipelago to the administrative unit below the residency (karesidenan).

In the Telaga Batu inscription, which was found in the village near Palembang and contains a worship of the king of Srivijaya, there may be the word bhupati.

This secession of new regencies, welcome at first, has become increasingly controversial within Indonesia because the administrative fragmentation has proved costly and has not brought the hoped-for benefits.