The Makassarese built an earlier fort, Ujung Pandang, around 1634. The Dutch took the site under the Treaty of Bongaya in 1667. Admiral Cornelis Speelman initiated the rebuilding, which ran from 1673 to 1679, and the Dutch renamed the fort Rotterdam after his birthplace. The article calls the style 17th-century colonial.
It is rectangular, with five bastions and a church at the center. The Makassarese called it Benteng Penyu, the sea-turtle fort, because of its shape. The rampart is 23 feet (7 meters) high and the moat was 6.6 feet (2 meters) deep. The stone came from the Maros karst mountains and the limestone from Selayar.
The Javanese prince Diponegoro was imprisoned there from 1830 to 1855. Extensively restored in the 1970s, it is now a cultural and educational center.
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