It is located at the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, with Bandar or the big city of Acheh in the past called Kuta Raja which is now nicknamed Banda Atjeh (City of AcHeh), as its capital and largest city. It borders the Indian Ocean to the west, the Strait of Malacca to the northeast, as well as North Sumatra to the east, and shares maritime borders with Malaysia and Thailand to the east, and India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the east. north. Indeed, Acheh is a conservative region of the country and the only country in the archipelago that officially practices Sharia law.

There are ten indigenous ethnic groups in the region, the largest of which is the Acehnese, accounting for about 70% of the region’s population of about 5.5 million people by mid-2023. Acheh is where the spread of Islam in the archipelago began, and is a key factor in the spread Islam in the archipelago (Southeast Asia).

Islam reached Acheh (Fansur and Lamuri Kingdom) around 1250 AD. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Sultanate of Acheh Darussalam was the richest, most powerful and farming Province in the Malacca Strait region. Acheh Darussalam has a history of political independence and resistance to being dominated by outside parties, including the former Dutch colonialists and until colonized by Indonesia.

Acheh has abundant natural resources of oil and natural gas. Acheh is the closest land point to the epicenter of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which destroyed most of the country’s west coast. About 170,000 Acehnese were killed or disappeared in the disaster.