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Indonesia

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Cities in Indonesia (5)

Asia
🇮🇩 Indonesia

Bandung

Bandung (Indonesian: Bandung — possibly from the Sundanese word "bendung" meaning "dam" or from a word meaning "lake" relating to the ancient lake that once occupied the Bandung Basin, population 2.5 million in the city proper and 8.7 million in the metropolitan area (Greater Bandung — one of the ten largest urban agglomerations in Southeast Asia) — the capital of West Java Province and the third-largest city in Indonesia after Jakarta and Surabaya) is a city of multiple extraordinary identities: the "Paris of Java" (the Dutch colonial-era epithet for Bandung — the city that the Dutch colonial government of the Dutch East Indies planned as the future capital of the colony (the plan to move the colonial capital from Batavia (Jakarta) to Bandung was under active preparation when the Japanese invasion of 1942 ended the Dutch colonial era): the Dutch built Bandung in the Art Deco style (the 1920s and 1930s Dutch interpretation of the Art Deco architectural movement — the "Nieuwe Zakelijkheid" or "New Objectivity" in the Dutch-Indonesian colonial context: the most complete surviving Art Deco colonial streetscape in Southeast Asia after Hanoi), the city of the 1955 Bandung Conference (the Asian-African Conference of 1955 — the meeting of the leaders of 29 African and Asian newly independent nations that founded the Non-Aligned Movement (the political movement of countries that refused to align with either the US-led NATO bloc or the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact during the Cold War): the Bandung Conference is one of the most important political events of the 20th century and the founding moment of the Global South as a political category), the city of Sundanese culture (the Sundanese people — the largest ethnic group in West Java and the second-largest ethnic group in Indonesia (42 million Sundanese): the Sundanese culture is distinct from Javanese culture in language, music (the "gamelan degung" — the Sundanese gamelan orchestra which is distinct from the Central Javanese gamelan), cuisine and visual arts), and the city of volcanoes (Bandung sits in the Bandung Basin — a volcanic caldera at 768m altitude surrounded by active and dormant volcanoes (Tangkuban Perahu (2,084m — the "upside-down boat" volcano), Papandayan (2,665m) and Galunggung (2,168m)).

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Asia
🇮🇩 Indonesia

Denpasar

Denpasar (population 900,000) is the capital of Bali and the most important city in the most internationally famous Indonesian island — the spiritual and commercial hub that most tourists pass through but rarely explore (most going straight to Seminyak, Ubud or Kuta). This is a mistake: Denpasar contains the most important Balinese cultural institutions (the Bali Museum — the most comprehensively Balinese-art-collected museum on the island, the Puputan Badung Square — the site of the most heroic mass suicide in colonial history: the 1906 puputan when the Balinese royal court walked into Dutch gunfire rather than surrender), the most important traditional Balinese textile market (the Badung Market — the most comprehensively stocked handicraft and fabric market on the island), and the most important Balinese performing arts school (the KOKAR arts high school — the most important single institution for traditional Balinese dance and gamelan training). Denpasar is also the most important port city in the Lesser Sunda Islands and the gateway to the Ngurah Rai International Airport (the most visited single airport in Indonesia by international tourists).

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🇮🇩 Indonesia

Jakarta

Jakarta (the capital and largest city of Indonesia — 10.6 million in the DKI Jakarta province, 32+ million in the Greater Jakarta (Jabodetabek) metropolitan area, the largest urban area in the Southern Hemisphere and the 2nd largest in Asia after Tokyo) is the political, economic, and cultural center of the world's 4th most populous country and the largest Muslim-majority nation on Earth (Indonesia: 277 million people, 87% Muslim). Jakarta was established as the Dutch colonial trading post of Batavia (Batavia was founded by Jan Pieterszoon Coen of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1619 on the site of the Sundanese port of Jayakarta — the Dutch name of "Batavia" gave way to "Batavia" for 300 years until the Japanese occupation renamed it "Djakarta" in 1942 and Indonesian independence confirmed the name). The city is a fascinating contradiction: the old Kota Tua (old Dutch colonial city) with its 17th-century VOC warehouses and the Fatahillah Square (the former Stadhuis, or city hall of Batavia), beside one of the most intense modern megacity landscapes in Southeast Asia — the Semanggi interchange cloverleaf, the Jakarta BRT (TransJakarta — the longest Bus Rapid Transit network in the world: 241 km of dedicated bus lanes), and the vast shopping malls of the new CBD around Sudirman and Kuningan.

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🇮🇩 Indonesia

Medan

Medan is the fourth-largest city in Indonesia and the sprawling, chaotic gateway to North Sumatra — a place where the cultures of Batak, Malay, Chinese, Indian and Javanese communities intersect in one of Southeast Asia's most diverse culinary and cultural environments. The Dutch colonial legacy is visible in the Maimun Palace (1888), the Great Mosque and the art-deco facades of the former trading district, but Medan's energy is thoroughly contemporary: one of Indonesia's fastest-growing cities, it trades in palm oil, rubber and tobacco from the Deli Sultan's fertile river valley. The city itself is a transit hub rather than a destination — most visitors pass through en route to Lake Toba (the world's largest volcanic lake, three hours south) or the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre at Bukit Lawang in the Gunung Leuser UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. But Medan's food scene — particularly its Melayu, Indian-Muslim and Hokkien Chinese hybrid cuisines — is reason enough to stay two days before heading into the Sumatran jungle.

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🇮🇩 Indonesia

Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta (ꦔꦪꦺꦴꦒꦾꦏꦂꦠ — Ngayogyakarta; locally abbreviated "Jogja"; population 3.4 million in the greater urban area; the Special Region of Yogyakarta (Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta) — the only province of Indonesia still governed by a hereditary sultan, Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, whose sultanate has ruled continuously since 1755 and who also serves as the Governor of the province under the 2012 Yogyakarta Special Region Law (the unique arrangement by which the Sultan of Yogyakarta is simultaneously the hereditary monarch of the traditional Javanese kingdom and the elected (by special constitutional provision) governor of the modern Indonesian province); in central Java, 30 km north of the Indian Ocean coast, 28 km south of Mount Merapi (the most active volcano in Indonesia and one of the most active in the world), 42 km southwest of the Borobudur Buddhist temple complex (the largest Buddhist monument in the world) and 17 km east of the Prambanan Hindu temple complex (the largest Hindu temple compound in Southeast Asia)) is the cultural capital of Java and the heartland of Javanese civilization: the centre of the Javanese royal courts, the batik textile tradition, the wayang kulit (shadow puppet theatre), the gamelan music, the kraton (palace) culture and the most refined Javanese court cuisine, all maintained in a living tradition that has survived Dutch colonialism (1755-1945), Japanese occupation (1942-1945) and Indonesian independence (the Yogyakarta sultanate played a crucial role in the Indonesian National Revolution (1945-1949): the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono IX, granted the Republican government of Sukarno and Hatta use of the palace as the Indonesian capital during the Dutch Military Operations (1947-1949), making Yogyakarta the capital of the Republic of Indonesia from January 4, 1946 to December 28, 1949). The Yogyakarta region contains two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Borobudur Temple Compounds (listed 1991: the 9th century Mahayana Buddhist temple complex — the single largest Buddhist monument in the world at 2,500 square metres of bas-relief narrative stone panels depicting the entire path from the world of desire to enlightenment) and the Prambanan Temple Compounds (listed 1991: the 9th century Shaivite Hindu temple complex — the most important Hindu temple in Indonesia, with the central Shiva temple 47 m tall).

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