Cirebon is a port city on the north coast of the Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n island of Java. It is located in the province of West Java

West Java

West Java , with a population of over 43 million, is the most populous and most densely populated province of Indonesia. Located on the island of Java, it is slightly smaller in area than densely populated Taiwan, but with nearly double the population...

 near the provincial border with Central Java

Central Java

Central Java is a province of Indonesia. The administrative capital is Semarang. It is one of six provinces on the island of Java.This province is the province of high Human Development in Indonesia and its Points Development Index countries is equivalent to Lebanon. The province of Central Java...

, approximately 297 km east of Jakarta

Jakarta

Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

, at 6°43′S 108°34′E.

The seat of a former Sultanate, the city's West and Central Java border location have seen its history influenced by both Sundanese

Sundanese people

The Sundanese are an ethnic group native to the western part of the Indonesian island of Java. They number approximately 31 million, and are the second most populous of all the nation's ethncities. The Sundanese are predominantly Muslim...

 and Javanese culture and also Chinese

Chinese Indonesian

Chinese Indonesians, also called the Indonesian Chinese, are an overseas Chinese group whose ancestors emigrated from China to Indonesia, formerly a colony of the Netherlands known as the Dutch East Indies...

.
Being on the border of "Sunda" (ie, West Java) and "Jawa" (ie, Central Java), many of Cirebon's residents speak a dialect that is a mix of Sundanese

Sundanese language

Sundanese is the language of about 27 million people from the western third of Java or about 15% of the Indonesian population....

 and Javanese

Javanese language

Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...

, and it is thought that the word "cirebon" derives from the Javanese word, caruban, meaning "mixed", a reference to the city's mix of Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese, and Arabic cultural elements.