Billiton

Billiton is the historic English-language name for Belitung Island in the Indonesian archipelago, and is also the name of a former Dutch-Indonesian mining company. The island lies in the Java Sea off the east coast of Sumatra and is part of the Bangka Belitung Islands province. Its principal town is Tanjung Pandan. The name Billiton was used during the Dutch colonial period and remained common in Western sources into the 20th century; today the island is generally referred to as Belitung.

The name Billiton also belongs to Koninklijke Billiton Maatschappij, a mining company founded in 1860 to exploit tin deposits in the Belitung region. The company grew into a multinational mining group with interests in tin, coal, base metals, and other minerals across several continents. Its global expansion helped establish Billiton as a major name in the mining industry during the 20th century.

In 2001, Billiton merged with Australia’s Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) to form BHP Billiton, creating one of the world’s largest mining groups. In the following decade, the combined corporation gradually streamlined its branding, and by 2017 it had adopted the simpler name BHP. The legacy of the Billiton name thus appears in historical references to the island and in the corporate history of the mining company.