On the morning of 1 January 1200 the Atlas records 14 realms and principalities in Island Southeast Asia, with 104 lords and officers, 211 towns, ports and sites, 34 church lands and religious houses and 94 provinces, peoples and free lands.
The realms
- Malayu (Jambi), the Mauli kingdom of the Batang HariTrailokyaraja Maulibhusana WarmadewaKingdom, no king known for 1200
Malayu is the river kingdom of the Batang Hari, whose people sell the gold washed in the Minangkabau uplands, forest goods from the lowlands, and the right to pass the strait.
- Palembang, the Musi port-statePort-state, ruler not known
Palembang is the old seat of Srivijaya on the lower Musi: the Srivijayan stones of 683 to 686 were cut here, the ritual hill of Bukit Seguntang stands above the river, and an engineered landscape of canals and artificial islands (Karanganyar) lies in the flood
- Panai, the brick-temple plain of Padang LawasTemple plain, no ruler named
On the open grass plain of Padang Lawas in the Barumun and Batang Pane valleys stand brick sanctuaries (Bahal, Si Pamutung, Sitopayan and others) built, by their fabric and the dates reported from Perret's excavations, roughly between the eleventh and the thir
- Tambralinga at Nakhon Si ThammaratPort kingdom of the peninsula
Tambralinga is the Buddhist coastal state at Nakhon Si Thammarat, the one place on the Isthmus with enough rice behind it to field an army.
- Grahi at ChaiyaGalanaiPort kingdom of the isthmus
Grahi (the Chinese Kia-lo-hi, modern Chaiya) sits on Bandon bay at the eastern end of the best road across the Isthmus from Takua Pa.
- Langkasuka on the Patani plainOld kingdom, no ruler or event recorded
Langkasuka is one of the oldest named states of the peninsula, known to the Chinese from the sixth century (Liang shu; embassies in 515, 523, 531 and 568) and struck by the Cholas in 1025 as Ilangasoka.
- Malay river-mouth ports (a colour, not a state)Ports whose overlord no source names
This is the peninsula and the strait as they most probably were: a line of river mouths, each the outlet of a valley that produces tin, gold, resin or eaglewood, and each a place where a ship waits for the monsoon to turn.
- Kediri (Panjalu) under KertajayaKertajayaKingdom of the Brantas, with outer ground by claim
Kediri, which the plates call Panjalu after the district round its court at Daha, is the strongest state in Java and, on the Chinese evidence, one of the richest in the world.
- The Sundanese kingdom of western JavaKingdom, thinly recorded
Sunda is the Sundanese-speaking west of Java, a country of its own in language and custom and separate from Kediri's Javanese east.
- The kingship of Pejeng and Bedulu, BaliSri ArjayadengjayaketanaKingship, a queen and her son as listed
Bali is a separate kingdom with its own language of record, its own edicts since 914 (the Blanjong pillar of Sri Kesari Warmadewa at Sanur) and its own calendar of temple obligation.
- Po-ni, the trading kingdom of Brunei bayKingdom known only from outside
Po-ni is the Chinese name for a trading kingdom on the north-west coast of Borneo, conventionally placed on the Brunei river at the head of Brunei bay.
- Butuan, the gold river kingdom of the AgusanRiver kingdom, silent since 1011
Butuan is the one place in the Philippines that sent its own embassies to a Chinese court: the Song shi (Pu-duan) records missions in 1001, 1003 and 1007, and in 1011 the envoy sought a place at court equal to Champa's.
- Ma-i, the trading country of the Chinese noticesTrading country, place argued
Ma-i (Mayi) is a trading country in the Philippines that the Chinese list among the southern lands trading at their ports from 971 (Song shi), whose merchants bring goods to Guangzhou in 982, and that Zhao Rukuo describes about 1225.
- Self-governing peoples of Island Southeast AsiaSelf-governing peoples
This is the colour for every community on the sheet that governs itself and answers to no realm named on it.
Self-governing peoples and other lands
Records of this region that belong to no single realm page.
- Aru islands · port
- Cenderawasih and Biak · port
- Kei islands · port
- Misool · port
- Onin peninsula · port
- Tanimbar islands · port
- Waigeo · port
Primary sources for Island Southeast Asia
- A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date.
- Notes in Answer to Questions about the Lands beyond the Passes, Zhou Qufei (周去非) (1178, after service in Guangxi). A Guangxi official's notes, written twenty years before 1200, on the south-western frontier of the Song and the countries beyond.
- Old Javanese Charters (the Brandes and Krom corpus), including the Kediri inscriptions of Kamesvara and Srngga, Various (the Kediri kings and their officers), edited by J. L. A. Brandes and N. J. Krom (inscriptions of the 8th to 15th centuries; edited 1913). Kediri (Panjalu) in 1200 is known from a few royal charters on stone and copper, which this corpus first printed: the records of Kamesvara (about 1182 to 1194) and of Srngga, that is Kertajaya (from about 1194 to 1222), among them the Kamulan charter of 1194 and the Palah (Panataran) record of 1197, with the king's titles, his seal, the officials of the court and the villages freed from tax.
- The Description of the Country, called the Nagarakretagama, Mpu Prapanca (1365 at the Majapahit court). A Majapahit court poem of 1365 listed here only for its retrospect.
- The Grahi (Chaiya) Buddha inscription and the Tambralinga records, Various (the officers of Grahi and the kings of Tambralinga), edited by George Coedes (the Chaiya bronze Buddha inscription 1183; the Nakhon Si Thammarat records 13th century; edited 1929, revised 1961). The peninsula in 1200 has one near-contemporary dated text: the Old Khmer inscription on the base of a bronze Buddha from Wat Hua Wiang at Chaiya, dated 1183, which records the image's casting by order of the mahasenapati Galanai, governor of Grahi, under the king Srimat Trailokyaraja Maulibhusanavarmadeva, a name that is argued to be either a Malayu (Srivijaya) overlord or a local king.
- History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives.
- Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200.
- The Leiden grants of Rajaraja I and Kulottunga I concerning the Srivijaya vihara at Nagapattinam, The Chola chancery (Rajaraja I, Rajendra I, Kulottunga I) (the Larger plates about 1005 to 1014 (completed under Rajendra I); the Smaller plates 1090). Background documents for the relations between the Cholas and the Malay world.
- History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars.
How these entries are made
Every entry describes one morning, 1 January 1200, and keeps later events in a dated "what the year holds" list with the conditions each depended on. Each entry names its sources, rates its confidence and says where the sources disagree. Published 4 November 2026. Corrections are welcome.