Names of Indonesia Oceania and Maritime Southeast Asia. During that era, the East Indies portion now called "Indonesia" fell under Dutch colonial control and therefore was referred to as Dutch East Indies. Insulindia or Insulinde, is an archaic geographical term for Maritime Southeast Asia, encompassing the entire area situated between Australasia and Indochina. More common in Portuguese and Spanish, it is a combined word (portmanteau) from "insula" ("island") and "india" (India). "Indonesia" derives from the Latin and Greek "Indus" (Ἰνδός), and the Greek "nésos" (νῆσος), meaning "island". The name dates to the 18th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. In 1850,
Scylax of Caryanda the natives, which he would have accepted in good faith. Scylax's "Periplus" provided the West with its first account of the easterly people and served as a model for later Greek writers. More lastingly, it gave India its name. The people of the Indus region were referred to as "Hiduš" or "Hidush" in Persian (due to sound change of "*s" > "h" from Proto-Iranian "Sindhu"). If Scylax wrote in the Ionic dialect of Greek, which did not pronounce initial "h" sounds, he would have transformed it to "Indos" (plural: "Indoi"). Their land was characterised as "Indike" (the adjectival form, meaning