The cool volcanic plateau of the Karo (Kabanjahe, Berastagi) above the Deli coast.
The Karo trade down the Deli river to Kota Cina and west over the hills; later tradition links some Karo clans with the kingdom of Haru, which is not attested before 1282. No source of 1200 names a Karo chief.
Who he is
- Title
- Heads of the lineages (marga) of Karo
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not known
- Confidence
- low
No source names the holder for any date near 1 January 1200.
Overlord
None named.
What it holds
- Their villages, rice terraces and forest groves, and the right to sell the forest's goods
How things stand that morning
Not recorded. No king, no capital, no writing; villages under their lineage heads, tied by marriage and feud.
Wealth
Camphor, benzoin and gold passed to coastal buyers at the foot of the range; rice and iron for themselves.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Thin: nothing is written here in 1200; the picture is the campaign board's and later ethnography read back. Hirth and Rockhill read 'Pa-t'a' (a dependency of San-fo-ts'i in the Zhufan zhi) as the Batak country; we could not recheck that reading.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: Core only.
Sources and studies
- OMNIA board note (a lead only, checked against the sources above)
- F. Hirth and W. W. Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua: his work on the Chinese and Arab trade (1911), table of contents and chapter titles seen; text not reachable
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.