Before its inclusion into the colonial government of the
Dutch Indies, the location of present-day Jayapura was known as
Numbay. Before the arrival of the Dutch there was an active trade in Numbay, centered on the Island of Metui Debi and the area where the former Gereja Pengharapan ("Church of the Favor of God") stood on Sam Ratulangi Road, being most active between 1897 and 1905. The mode of the trade was through barter for
spices,
cassava,
salted fish and
bird-of-paradise. The society of Numbay, or Tabi in general, was led by an
ondoafi (chief of the tribe). By 1849, the Numbay region was a tributary of the
Tidore Sultanate. On 28 September 1909, a detachment of the
Dutch navy under Captain F.J.P. Sachse came ashore at Humboldt Bay near the mouth of the Numbay river. Their task was the systematic exploration of northern New Guinea and the search for a natural border between the Dutch and German spheres on New Guinea. Their camp along the river was called
Kloofkamp, a name still in use as the name of an old district of Jayapura. Forty coconut trees were cut down for the establishment of the camp. They were bought from the owners at a cost of one
rijksdaalder per palm. On 7 March 1910, the Dutch flag was raised and the settlement was named
Hollandia. On the other side of the bay there was already a German camp,
Germania-Huk (German Corner), which is now uninhabited and part of Indonesian territory. Hollandia was the capital of a district of the same name in the northeast of West New Guinea. The name Hollandia was used until 1962. The northern part of Netherlands New Guinea was occupied by
Japanese forces in 1942.
Allied forces drove out the Japanese after
Operations Reckless and
Persecution, the amphibious landings near Hollandia, from 21 April 1944. The area's
Naval Base Hollandia, served as General
Douglas MacArthur's headquarters until the conquest of the
Philippines in March 1945. Over twenty U.S. bases were established and half a million US personnel moved through the area. In mid-January 1960, 29-year-old Australian
ocean rower and eccentric
bushman Michael 'Tarzan' Fomenko was kept in Hollandia by Dutch authorities while they liaised with Australian authorities on what to do with him. Fomenko had arrived in
Dutch New Guinea in December 1959 in a
dugout canoe which he had paddled from
Queensland through the
Torres Strait for some months prior. Jayapura was struck by the Aitape tsunami after the
1998 Papua New Guinea earthquake.{{cite web ==Geography and climate==