Etymology According to legends, native
Tidungs established their kingdom in Tarakan around 1076 CE. After moving their capital several times over the centuries, in 1571 CE they settled their kingdom on the eastern coast of Tarakan, apparently already
under the influence of Islam. The name Tarakan comes from the Tidung language: (meeting place) and (to eat); thus Tarakan was originally a meeting place for sailors and traders to eat, rest and trade their catch in the Tidung area.
Petroleum Dutch explorers noted
oil seepages in 1863. In 1905, an oil concession was granted to Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij' a predecessor to
Royal Dutch Shell. One year later oil production began with a yield of over 57,928 barrels of oil per year. Production continued to increase and in the 1920s Tarakan yielded over five million barrels a year, a third of the total oil production in the whole of the
Dutch East Indies. The oil produced here had a
paraffin base instead of the usual
asphalt base. Tarakan
oil fields produced a
light,
sour crude oil with an unusually low
pour point. By 1940, the island had an
oil refinery with four petroleum loading piers, and was one of the five largest petroleum processing centers in the
East Indies.
World War II Japanese oil-fields in
Sakhalin and
Formosa provided only about ten percent of the petroleum needed to sustain Japanese industry through the mid-20th century. Reserves of California crude oil at Japanese refineries would have been exhausted in less than two years at the rate of consumption when the United States
terminated exports to Japan on 26 July 1941.
Japan initiated hostilities against the United States and the United Kingdom four months later in December 1941 in preparation for seizing alternative sources of petroleum in the East Indies. The Netherlands had declared war on Japan a month earlier. Dutch forces
sabotaged the Tarakan oil-field and refinery prior to surrender. Japan had captured the
Miri oil-field in Sarawak in December 1941, and captured oil-fields and refineries at
Balikpapan in Dutch Borneo in January 1942,
Sumatra in February, and
Java in March. Oil technicians accompanied the invading Japanese troops to maintain production at captured facilities. A team of one thousand additional
petroleum engineers and technicians sailed from Japan aboard the
Taiyo Maru, but nearly 800 drowned when
USS Grenadier sunk the
Taiyo Maru southwest of
Kyushu on 8 May 1942. Despite this loss, Tarakan crude oil (mixed with lesser quantities of
Manchurian
oil-shale distillates) became the primary
feedstock for Japanese
diesel fuel in 1942, while reserve supplies of California crude oil remained the primary feedstock for Japanese
gasoline and
residual fuels until 1943.
Independence Era Following the
Indonesian revolution in the late 1940s, Tarakan became part of the new republic. It was administered as a district following a Presidential Decree Number 22, 1963. In 1981, Tarakan was granted a city charter, at that time one of four cities in
East Kalimantan, along with
Samarinda,
Balikpapan and
Bontang in accordance with Government Law Number 47, 1981. The city witnessed the
Tarakan riot in 2010 following a clash between
Buginese migrants from neighboring Sulawesi island and the
Tidung people. The two groups later agreed to a peace deal, mediated by local police and the governor of then-
East Kalimantan,
Awang Faroek Ishak. After
North Kalimantan was established as a province in 2012, Tarakan became the sole city within the new province. == Demographics ==