Great East

The Great East (Dutch: Groote Oost) was a governorate (gouvernement) of the Dutch East Indies between 1938 and 1946. It comprised all the islands to the east of Borneo (Celebes, the Moluccas, and West New Guinea, with their offshore islands) and of Java (Bali and the Lesser Sunda Islands). Its capital was Macassar on Celebes. The Great East was created with the merger of its constituent residencies on 25 May 1938 and was ruled by a governor. The first governor was G. A. W. Ch. de Haze Winkelman. Following World War II, the governorate (except for Netherlands New Guinea) became the State of the Great East (later the State of East Indonesia) on 24 December 1946. This state became a constituent of the federal United States of Indonesia in 1949 and was integrated into a unitary Indonesia in 1950 (except West New Guinea, which was only integrated in 1963). As of December 2022, the area is divided into the eastern 17 of Indonesia's 38 provinces.