[3] The majority of them are found in Jakarta, Bogor, Puncak, Bali and Surabaya.

There is a long history between Germans and Indonesians, dating back to the 16th century when German traders travelling on Dutch and Portuguese ships came to what was then known as the East Indies.

During the Company rule of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) thousands of Germans came to Indonesia, both as administrative employees under the Dutch Colony, as well as engineers, researchers, technical scientists and German soldiers.

In the nineteenth century, more than 300 German, Swiss, and Austro-Hungarian medical practitioners served in the Dutch colonial health service, with the majority joining the medical corps of the Dutch Colonial Army (KNIL) and others serving in the comparatively small colonial civil health service.

After 1945, German entrepreneurs, German experts in development cooperation as well as in education and research, and intensive academic exchanges continued the good relations between Germany and Indonesia.