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 April 18-24, 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. The twenty nine countries, which participated at the Bandung Conference, represented nearly one fourth of the Earth's land surface and a total population of 1.5 billion people. The conference was organized by Indonesia, Burma, Pakistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and India and was coordinated by Ruslan Abdulgani, secretary general of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The conference's stated aims were to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism or neocolonialism by either the United States or the Soviet Union in the Cold War, or any other imperialistic nations. The conference was an important step toward the crystallization of the Non-Aligned Movement.
