ACHIN, ACHEEN, or ATCHEEN, a-chen' (properly Acheh, Portuguese corruption Achem, Dutch Atjeh or Ajeh), a district at the northwest extremity of Sumatra, till 1873 an in dependent sultanate, now a province of Dutch Indies: area, 20,471 square miles; pop. (1912) 789,664 (but a true census must be impossible). The surface is divided into an eastern and a western half by a mountain chain which tra verses the whole island, rising in the peak of Abong-Abong to 11,000 feet. At the farthest north is the famous Gold Mountain, at the base of which lies the capital. On both sides are numerous stretches of level or undulating soil, watered by small but deep streams, and admirably adapted for tree-culture, gardening and rice. The flora and fauna agree with those of Sumatra; pepper-trees and areca-nuts grow there. The natives employ themselves in agri culture, cattle-rearing, trade, fisheries, weaving cloth and working in gold, silver and iron. The chief agricultural industry is the produc tion of rice and pepper, the latter sent from many small western ports. From Pedir and other northern ports large quantities of betel nut are exported to India, Burmah and China. Achin ponies are also much reputed and ex ported. Minor exports are sulphur, iron, sapan wood, gutta-percha, dammer, rattans, bamboos, benzoin and camphor, the latter highly valued in China and bringing an enormous price. Silk, once plentiful, has nearly disappeared. Nor is there now much export of the gold that once drew so much trade thither and made it so rich as to astonish foreigners. No place in the East save japan was so abundantly supplied with it, and it was from far antiquity part of the Golden Chersonese. It exported probably 15,000 to 20,000 ounces a year. The imports are mainly rice (the native supply being insufficient), opium, salt, dried fish, cotton goods, iron and copper wares, firearms, pottery, etc. The people are distinct from the rest of the Sumatran, who are Malays; they are taller, handsomer and darker, more active and industrious, and good seamen; but they are treacherous, blood thirsty and revengeful, immoral and inordi nately addicted to opium. Their ethnological place is not settled; they are believed to be Malay at root, though probably with some ad mixture from India, and not impossibly an Arab strain. Their speech is said by some to be Polynesian at root, though with much Malay loan element. Their literature is entirely Malay, and comprises poetry, theology and chronicles.
The capital of the province is Kota Radja or Achin, situated at the northwest extremity, on a stream navigable by boats, about 41/4 miles from its port Oleh-leh, with which, since 1876, it has been connected by a railway. Formerly a large and flourishing city, it was almost en tirely destroyed during the war, but is now beginning to revive. It contains a Dutch garrison.
Civilization was first introduced into Sumatra by Hindu missionaries in the 7th century, and a considerable amount of immigra tion from India followed. In the 13th century it was converted to Mohammedanism by Arabs — the sultans of Achin claim descent from the first Mohammedan missionary — and the Arabic alphabet displaced the Japanese. Northern Su matra was visited by several European travelers in the Middle Ages, as Marco Polo, Friar Odor ico and Nicolo Conti; and some of these, as well as Asiatic writers, mention Lambri, a state which must have corresponded nearly with Achin; but the first to name it as such is Alvaro Tellez, a captain of the Portuguese Tristan d'Acunha's fleet, in 1506. It was then a de
pendency of Pedir adjoining; but within 20 years it had not only gained independence, but swallowed up all the other states of northern Sumatra. It attained the climax of power under Sultan Iskandar Muda, 1607-36, when it extended from Aru, opposite Malacca, round by the north to Padang on the western coast, a sea board of 1,100 miles ; and its supremacy was owned also by the large island of Nyas, and by the continental Malay states of Johor, Pahang, Quedah and Perak. It is in fact the only Su matran state which has at any time been power ful since the Cape route to the East was dis covered. Its wealth astonished the European visitors and traders; and its great commercial repute is shown by the fact that it was to Achin port that the first Dutch (1599) and English (1602) commercial ventures were directed. Lancaster, the English commodore, carried let ters from Queen Elizabeth to *the king of Atcheen,* James I exchanged letters with Is kandar Muda in 1613, and the Achinese sent envoys to the Dutch republic, who were re ceived by Prince Maurice in camp (1602). But native jealousy of foreigners and the latter's rivalry with and destruction of each other's ventures prevented the establishment of per manent factories there. Still, the trade, though spasmodically interrupted, was very important ; foreign merchants of many nations were settled in Achin city port, while other Chinese mer chants came annually and held a great fair through June and July. For 58 years after Iskandar's death the Malay oligarchy of chiefs placed females on the throne; in 1699 the Arab party suppressed this system and set up an Arab ruler, and the state rapidly decayed from inter nal factions. From 1666 on, the Dutch had held possessions around Padang on the western coast, and gradually gained much in old Achin; in 1811 the British seized this as well as the other Dutch East Indies. In 1816 Java was restored to the Dutch, but the English colonies insisted the more strenuously that English in fluence should be maintained in Achin; and in 1819 the Calcutta government made a treaty ex cluding all other foreigners from permanent settlements there. In 1824 an exchange was made with the Dutch, of the Sumatran settle ments for others in Asia; the above article was not mentioned, but it was privately understood that it should not be insisted on tf the Dutch would make no war on Achin. In the conven tion at The Hague, 2 Nov. 1871, the Dutch in sisted on the latter stipulation being formally withdrawn, as the Achinese were pirates and chastisement was often needed; and in 1873 Holland — with plenty of provocation, but grave doubts even at home of its necessity em barked in the war, which cost it 15,000 lives and about $100,000,000, and ended in 1880 in the real subjugation of the country. Achin city was captured and civil government has been instituted in the coast territory; but the natives are fierce and have a good country for guerrilla warfare, and outbreaks occurred in 1896, 1898 and 1901-04. Many evidences of these wars may be seen in Holland. The authoritative works are all in Dutch; the chief is Snouck Hurgronje Atjehers) (2 vols., Batavia 1893-95). There is also one of Veth, (Atchin) (Leyden 1873). For the geography of Atchin consult Volz 'Die Gajolander) (Berlin 1912).