• Journal of East-Asian Urban History
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.57-82
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• 2021

This article examines the urban example of Batu Sawar which served as the capital of the Johor kingdom between 1587 and circa 1615. Around the middle of the eighteenth-century European reference works continued to describe Batu Sawar as the capital of Johor, even though the city had long ceased to serve as a trading center, let alone as Johor's capital, and probably no longer existed. Such observations raise the question of urban impermanence-the transience of sizeable settlements with reference to the Malay Archipelago. Two overarching questions form the backbone of the investigation: First, why did Batu Sawar rise as a regional trading center, and second, what are the reasons that contributed to its decline? Batu Sawar's fate was sealed by a combination of factors that included poor defenses, multiple external shocks, destruction by fire, court politics and rivalry between the early colonial powers.