Built for the extrac­tion, pro­cess­ing and trans­port of high-qual­i­­ty coal in an inac­ces­si­ble region of Suma­tra, this indus­tri­al site was devel­oped by the Nether­lands East Indies’ gov­ern­ment in the glob­al­ly impor­tant peri­od of indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion from the late 19th to the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry. The work­force was recruit­ed from the local Minangk­abau peo­ple and sup­ple­ment­ed by Javanese and Chi­nese con­tract work­ers, and con­vict labour­ers from Dutch-con­trolled areas. It com­pris­es the min­ing site and com­pa­ny town, coal stor­age facil­i­ties at the port of Emma­haven and the rail­way net­work link­ing the mines to the coastal facil­i­ties. The Ombilin Coal Min­ing Her­itage was built as an inte­grat­ed sys­tem that enabled the effi­cient deep-bore extrac­tion, pro­cess­ing, trans­port and ship­ment of coal. It is also an out­stand­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of exchange and fusion between local knowl­edge and prac­tices and Euro­pean tech­nol­o­gy.