The first large-scale Asian–African or Afro–Asian Conference —also known as the Bandung Conference—was a meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, which took place on 18–24 April 1955 in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The twenty-nine countries that participated represented a total population of 1.5 billion people, 54% of the world's population. The conference was organized by Indonesia, Burma (Myanmar), India, Ceylon, and Pakistan and was coordinated by Ruslan Abdulgani, secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia.

Bandung is the capital city of the West Java province of Indonesia. Located on the island of Java, Greater Bandung is the country's second-largest and second most populous metropolitan area, with over 11 million inhabitants. Situated 768 meters above sea level, approximately 140 kilometres southeast of Jakarta, Bandung has cooler year-round temperatures than most other Indonesian cities. The city lies in a river basin surrounded by volcanic mountains that provide a natural defence system, which was the primary reason for the Dutch East Indies government's plan to move the capital from Batavia to Bandung. Bandung metropolitan is also ASEAN's 9th largest economy after of Hanoi.