The Sultanate of Banten was founded in the 16th century and centered in Banten, a port city on the northwest coast of Java; the contemporary English spelling of both was Bantam. It is said to have been founded by Sunan Gunungjati, who later went on to found Cirebon.

Once a great trading center in Southeast Asia, especially of pepper, its importance was overshadowed by Batavia, and finally annexed to Dutch East Indies in 1813. Its core territory now forms the Indonesian province of Banten.

Before 1526 AD, a settlement called Banten was situated not on the coast, but about ten kilometers inland on the Cibanten River, in the area which is today occupied by the southern suburbs of the town of Serang. It was known as Banten Girang, meaning “Banten-up-the-river" owing to its location. Gunungjati was an "ulema", an educated class of Muslim legal scholars. He was originally from Demak, then part of the kingdom of Sunda. In the early 16th century, he arrived in the town with the intention of spreading the word of Islam in this still-Hindu area.

Banten is a province of Indonesia in Java. Formerly part of the Province of West Java, it was made a separate province in 2000. The administrative center is Serang. Preliminary results from the 2010 census counted some 10,644,030 people.Jabodetabek (Greater Jakarta) covers the eastern part of the province.

Banten province lies between 5°7'50" and 7°1'11" south latitude and 105°1'11" and 106°7'12" east longitude. The province has an area of 9,162.92 km² and consists of 4 cities and 4 districts, sub-divided into 140 districts, 262 urban villages and 1242 villages.

Banten is located along the Sunda Strait amongst strategic sea lanes through which large ships can pass linking Australia and New Zealand to Southeast Asia. Banten’s ports accommodate the excess capacity of sea ports in Jakarta and is intended to be an alternative port of Singapore.^{[citation needed]}

Banten has sea borders to its north, (the Java Sea), to its west (the Sunda Strait), and to the south (the Indian Ocean). The Special Capital Region of Jakarta and the province of West Java border Banten to its east.