Prehistory s, a depiction of a bull, was discovered in the
Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave dated as over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old. The cave paintings were first spotted in 1994 by the French explorer
Luc-Henri Fage and the French archaeologist Jean-Michel Chazine, from Kalimanthrope. In 2018, a team of scientists investigating the cave, led by Maxime Aubert from
Griffith University and Pindi Setiawan from the
Bandung Institute of Technology, published a report in the journal
Nature identifying the paintings as the world's oldest known figurative art. The team had previously investigated cave paintings in the neighbouring island of
Sulawesi. In order to date the paintings, the team used dating techniques on the calcium carbonate (limestone) deposits close to them.
4th to 17th centuries of
Mulavarman, king of
Kutai Martadipura dating back to the 4th century CE discovered in present
Muara Kaman area,
Kutai Kartanegara Regency East Kalimantan has been home to several kingdoms, such as the first and oldest Hindu kingdom of Indonesia, the
Kingdom of Kutai Martadipura founded in the 4th century CE. It was succeeded by the
Sultanate of Kutai ing Martadipura in the 14th century. Other kingdoms were also located in East Kalimantan, such as the Sultanate of Pasir. East Kalimantan region includes Pasir, Kutai, Berau and also Karasikan (Buranun / pre-Sultanate of Sulu) claimed as conquered territory Suryanata Maharaja, the governor of Majapahit in the State Dipa, located in the Great Temple in Amuntai, until 1620 in the
Sultanate of Banjar. However, in the Chinese History Annals, Ming shi 明史, at 1417, some parts of the eastern Kalimantan were recorded as a kingdom under the rule of the Philippine kingdom of then Hindu
Sulu, as Kalimantan was ruled by a Sulu monarch named Mahalatu Gelamading (Maharaja Klainbantangan) whose title, Klainbantangan, in Chinese rendering, was named after his territory
Kalimantan. At this point in time, Sulu had rebelled against Majapahit rule and had invaded Northeast and East Borneo all the way to the territory of Kalimantan. Between the years 1620–1624, kingdoms in East Kalimantan fell under the influence of the Sultanate of Sultan Alauddin Makassar, before the Bungaya agreement. According to the Hikayat Banjar, the Sultan of Makassar never borrowed land for trade covers an area east and southeast of Borneo to the Sultan Mustain Billah of Banjar when Kiai Martasura sent to Makassar and entered into an agreement with the Sultan Tallo I Mangngadaccinna Daeng I Ba'le 'Sultan Mahmud Karaeng Pattingalloang, who became Mangkubumi and principal advisor to the Sultan Muhammad Said, king of Gowa in 1638–1654 and also in-law of Sultan Hasanuddin, who established the East Kalimantan region as a place to trade for the Sultanate of Makassar (Gowa-Tallo); since then people began to arrive from South Sulawesi. However, based on the agreement between the Sultanate of Banjar and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1635, VOC helped Banjar restore lands in East Kalimantan to the sphere of influence of the Sultanate of Banjar. It was set out in the Bungaya agreement that the Sultanate of Makassar was not allowed to trade up to the east and the north Borneo.
19th to 20th centuries In accordance with treaties, on January 1, 1817, Sultan Sulaiman of Banjar handed East Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, part of West and South Kalimantan (including Banjarmasin) over to the Dutch East Indies. On May 4, 1826, Sultan Adam al-wathiq Billah of Banjar reaffirmed the handover of these territories to the Dutch East Indies colonial administration. In 1846, the Dutch began to put a Resident Assistant in East Borneo at Samarinda (now the province of East Kalimantan and the eastern part of South Kalimantan) named H. Von Dewall. Like all other Indonesian provinces, East Kalimantan was then part of the
Dutch East Indies. East Kalimantan with its then administrative area was established based on the Law No. 25 of 1956, originally only consisted of three regency-level special regions: Berau, Bulongan, and
Kutai; Since late 1990s, the number of regencies and cities in East Kalimantan had steadily increased into 14 (with the last creation prior the creation of North Kalimantan, was being
Tana Tidung Regency in 2007).
Splitting off North Kalimantan province North Kalimantan was formally inaugurated as the 34th province of Indonesia on April 15, 2013. The new province was previously part of East Kalimantan Province.
New national capital The province will host the future
capital city of Indonesia that will be built on parts of
Penajam North Paser and
Kutai Kartanegara Regency. The
future capital is to be named Nusantara, with construction originally projected to start in 2020, and intended to conclude in 2024. However, at a hearing before Committee V of Indonesia's House of Representatives on 9 June 2020, a government representative asserted that the government had not allocated the 2022 budget for the project (for 2022, the ministry proposed a budget worth over 100.46 trillion rupiah - over 7 billion US$ - a steep reduction from the figure of 149.81 trillion rupiah in 2021). Earlier, the National Planning Development Authority had said that the total sum needed to move the capital from its current location in Jakarta to East Kalimantan province amounted to 486 trillion rupiah, of which 265.2 trillion will be mobilised through the public-private partnership (PPP), 127.3 trillion from private special funds, and 93.5 trillion from the state budget. But the Ministry of Finance said that the government switched its priorities to mitigating the effect of the
COVID-19 pandemic. The ministry announced that it had not allocated budget for the new capital project. Nevertheless, the new national capital was formally inaugurated in August 2024. == Geography ==