The official establishment of the Pakualaman Duchy was after the coronation of Sri Paku Alam I on Monday, June 29, 1812. However, the political contract between Sri Paku Alam I and the British Lieutenant Governor, Raffles, signed by J. Crawfurd, was only made on March 17, 1813 (Poerwokoesoemo, 1985: 148). The month and year of the political contract were the same as the establishment of the Mangkunegaran Duchy in Surakarta, as a form of agreement between the Dutch and Sri Mangkunegara I (Dwiyanto, 2009: 2, 7). As a result of these agreements, until the 19th century, the Mataram Kingdom was divided into four parts of the kingdom, namely the Kasunanan Surakarta, the Yogyakarta Sultanate, Mangkunegaran, and Pakualaman. Each, including Pakualaman, had its own autonomous region. However, in Yogyakarta, during the republican era, the Pakualaman government integrated with the Yogyakarta Sultanate to become the Special Region of Yogyakarta, as contained in the Mandate of 30 October 1945 (Moedjanto, 1994: 83).

On the terrace of the pendapa, there is a set of gamelan that is played every Minggu Pon. Inside the pendapa, there are buildings that partly function as living rooms, ceremonial places, and daily residences of Sri Paku Alam and the extended family of Pura Pakulaman. Pura Pakualaman also has a library and museum that can be visited on certain days. Both of these places exhibit collections of manuscripts in the form of chronicles and historical relics from the time of Paku Alam I to VIII. A book on the Catalog of Manuscripts of the Pura Pakualaman Library (2005) and Manuscripts of the Pakualaman Scriptorium: Paku Alam II Period (1830-1858) (2016) compiled by Sri Ratna Saktimulya, can provide an overview of the manuscript collections owned by Pura Pakulaman. The museum has three main rooms. In the first room, there is a genealogy or family structure that explains that Paku Alam I was the son of Sultan Hamengku Buwana I and also a descendant of King Brawijaya V of Majapahit. In addition to the genealogy, this room also displays large photographs of Sri Paku Alam II to VIII. The political agreement document between England and the Netherlands that marked the establishment of Pakualaman's power is also stored in this room along with other "royal" attributes.

In the second room, there is a collection of weapons, clothing items of Sri Paku Alam and the empress and soldiers. There is also a set of spears and shields used in the Banda Yuda dance. This dance was created during the Paku Alam V era and was a form of covert war training so that the Dutch would not know about it. In the third room, the collection of Kyai Manik Kumala's horse-drawn carriages, a gift from Raffles to Paku Alam I in 1814, is kept.