Indonesia's sprawling capital, built on the old Dutch trading city of Batavia. In the north, the canal-cut old town of Kota Tua still holds the city hall from which the Dutch East India Company ran a spice empire, and the working schooner harbour that was its reason to exist. To the south lies Merdeka Square, one of the largest in the world, where a colony declared itself a republic beneath a gilded flame. Read the company town and the square of freedom at your own pace.