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Priangan (or Parahyangan or de Preanger) is an area of the Sunda country in the Indonesian province of West Java. It covers the districts (kabupaten) of:-

• Bandung
• Cianjur
• Ciamis
• Cimahi
• Garut
• Sumedang
• Tasikmalaya

The total surface area of this area is 21,524 km ² (that is, a little less than 1/6th of Java). Priangan is bordered in the West by the kabupaten of Bogor and Sukabumi, in the North by those of Karawang, Purwakarta, Subang and Indramayu, in the North-East by those of Majalengka and Kuningan, in the East by the Citanduy River, which marks the border with the province of Java East. To the South it is bordered by the Indian Ocean.

The name “Parahyangan” comes from "hyang" which means “god”. It thus means “the residence of the gods”. Priangan is a mountainous region, and ancient Indonesians believed that the gods lived in the mountain tops.

You find this "hyang" derivation in other placenames on the island of Java , as in the Dieng Plateau in the centre, or the Yang Plateau in the east.

[edit] See also

• Sunda
• Pajajaran
• Carita Parahyangan, a Sunda text on Galuh and other kingdoms of Sunda

[edit] Further reading

• A. Sabana Harjasaputra, 2004, "Bupati di Priangan : kedudukan dan peranannya pada abad ke-17 - abad ke-19" in Bupati di

Priangan dan kajian lainnya mengenai budaya Sunda, Bandung

• Ajip Rosidi et al., 2000, Ensiklopedi Sunda, Jakarta.