began to develop in the 18th century when the Dutch East India Company started to open coffee plantation areas in the western Priangan region of Java. Due to the high demands of coffee in Europe, in the year of 1709 the Dutch governor-general Abraham van Riebeeck started to open coffee plantations around the area of Tjibalagoeng (present-day Bogor), Tjiandjoer, Djogdjogan, Pondok Kopo, and Goenoeng Goeroeh. Coffee plantations in these five areas had then undergone expansion and intensification during the era of Hendrick Zwaardecroon (1718–1725), where the Tjiandjoer regent at that time Wira Tanoe III acquired territorial expansion of his regency as a compensation for more coffee plantations openings. The growth of Goenoeng Goeroeh coffee plantation led to the establishment of small settlements around its area, one of those was the Tjikole (Cikole) hamlet, named after the nearby Tjikole River. In 1776, regent of Tjiandjoer Wira Tanoe Datar VI established the Tjikole Viceregency which were the indirect predecessor of the present-day Sukabumi Regency. The viceregency consisted of six districts of Djampang Koelon, Djampang Tengah, Goenoeng Parang, Tjiheoelang, Tjimahi, and Tjitjoeroeg. The administrative center was located in Tjikole, due to its very strategic locations for communications between Batavia and Tjiandjoer which were the capital of the Priangan Residency at that time. Tjikole becomes Soekaboemi After the Dutch East Indies were under the rule of the British in 1811, vast lands in the Tjikole area were bought by Stamford Raffles, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies at that time, via an auction held in Batavia. The name Soekaboemi was first used on 1815, when a Priangan-based plantation owner (known then as Preanger Planter) and surgeon, Andries de Wilde visited Tjikole in 1814. From his consultations with local people, De Wilde wrote a letter to Nicolaus Engelhard, a friend and plantation investor, where de Wilde asked Engelhard to propose a name change of the viceregency from Tjikole to Soekaboemi, to which Raffles agreed. In Dutch colonial times, Soekaboemi was the site of the Politieschool, the colonial police academy. On 8 December 1941, the Empire of Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies as part of World War II and on 6 March 1942, the city came under aerial bombardment by Japanese aircraft. During this attack, both civilian targets (including houses and two schools) and strategic targets (the police academy, the railway line, and the radio station) were hit, resulting in many casualties. During the