Today the old port only accommodates pinisi, a traditional two-masted wooden sailing ship providing inter-island freight service in the archipelago.

The Chinese source, Zhu Fan Zhi, written circa 1200, Chou Ju-kua identified the two most powerful and richest kingdoms in the Indonesian archipelago as Sriwijaya and Java (Kediri).

The port served the capital, Pakuan Pajajaran, located about 60 km inland south, along the Ciliwung river hinterland, now the site of modern Bogor.

This is where the trade is greatest and whither they all sail from Sumatra, and Palembang, Laue, Tamjompura, Malacca, Macassar, Java and Madura and many other places.

In exchange for military assistance against the threat of the rising Islamic Javanese Sultanate of Demak, Prabu Surawisesa, king of Sunda at that time, granted them free access to the pepper trade.

Portuguese who were in the service of the sovereign made their homes in Sunda Kelapa and were the first Christians in the lands of present day Indonesia.

In 1619, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, an official working for the Dutch East India Company, seized the port of Jayakarta from the Sultanate of Banten and founded Batavia.

Larger ships were difficult to enter the port due to its narrow width as well as the shallow water, so these had to anchor out at sea.

[4] In 1885, the Netherlands East Indies government decided to build a new Tanjung Priok port to accommodate the increasing traffic as a result of the opening of the Suez Canal.