Liem Thian Joe

Liem Thian Joe (1895–1962) was a late colonial Indonesian historian, newspaper editor, journalist and writer of Peranakan Chinese background. He is best known today for his seminal Riwajat Semarang, 1416–1931, a historical overview of Semarang's Chinese community.

Biography Born in 1895 in Parakan, Central Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Liem Thian Joe received his earliest education at local Malay and Javanese schools. Riwajat Semarang, while focused on the history of Semarang's Chinese community, is also an invaluable source for the history of Central Java, particularly of Semarang, since Liem was still able to access the now lost archives of the Kong Koan (or the 'Chinese Council') of Semarang, the city's peak Chinese government body.

He is also the anonymous author of Boekoe Peringetan Tiong Hoa Siang Hwee 1907-1937, an anniversary book of Semarang's Chinese Chamber of Commerce, published in 1937. Liem's other historical works include Pusaka Tionghoa of 1952 and the unpublished Riwajat Kian Gwan, a history of Southeast Asia's largest conglomerate at the time, Kian Gwan, completed in 1959.

Liem died in Semarang in February 1962.