_Administration._--Each village (dessa) forms an independent community, a group of dessas forms a district, a group of districts a department and a group of departments a residency, of which there are seventeen. At the head of each residency is a resident, with an assistant resident and a controller, all Dutch officials. The officials of the departments and districts are natives appointed by the government; those of the dessa are also natives, elected by the inhabitants and approved by the resident. In the two sultanates of Surakarta and Jokjakarta the native sultans govern under the supervision of the residents. (For the colonial administration of Netherlands India see MALAY ARCHIPELAGO.) _History._--The origin of the name Java is very doubtful. It is not improbable that it was first applied either to Sumatra or to what was known of the Indian Archipelago--the insular character of the several parts not being at once recognized. Jawa Dwipa, or "land of millet," may have been the original form and have given rise both to the Jaba diu of Ptolemy and to the Je-pho-thi of Fahien, the Chinese pilgrim of the 4th-5th century. The oldest form of the name in Arabic is apparently Zábej. The first epigraphic occurrence of Jawa is in an inscription of 1343. In Marco Polo the name is the common appellation of all the Sunda islands. The Jawa of Ibn Batuta is Sumatra; Java is his Mul Jáwa (i.e. possibly "original Java"). Jåwå is the modern Javanese name (in the court speech Jawi), sometimes with Nusa, "island," or Tanah, "country," prefixed.