Pelalawan

Pelalawan was a Malay kingdom on the Kampar River in eastern Sumatra. Its court occupied a place between the forested interior and the tidal waters leading to the Strait of Malacca. The river provided a route for boats and joined the royal centre to communities along its tributaries.

The kingdom grew from an older polity known as Pekantua. Local accounts associate its independence from Johor with 1699 and the adoption of the name Pelalawan with the 1720s. Maharaja Dinda moved the court towards the Rasau, a tributary of the Kampar. In the late eighteenth century the ruler of Siak sought to assert authority over Pelalawan. The kingdom continued under its own rulers, including Sultan Syarif Abdurrahman, who reigned in the early nineteenth century.