JetBrains announced Kotlin in 2011, and Google later made it a preferred language for Android development.
Kotlin was created by a JetBrains team led by Andrey Breslav. The language was designed for the Java Virtual Machine and emphasized concise syntax, interoperability with Java, and improved safety around null references.
Kotlin 1.0 was released in 2016. At Google I/O in 2017, Google announced official support for Kotlin on Android, and in 2019 it described Kotlin as its preferred language for Android app development.
Kotlin is not limited to Android. It can target the JVM, JavaScript, and native platforms through Kotlin Multiplatform technologies. Its name refers to Kotlin Island near St. Petersburg, rather than to a person or a programming concept.