Jakarta Totally Explained

ť This page is about the capital city of Indonesia. For The Apache Jakarta project, see Jakarta Project.

Jakarta (also DKI Jakarta), formerly known as Sunda Kalapa, Jayakarta, Batavia and Djakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Located on the northwest coast of the Java Island, it has an area of 661.52 km² and an official population of 8,792,000 (2004). Jakarta currently is the eleventh largest city, fifth largest metropolitan area and ninth most densely populated city in the world with 44,283 people per sq mile. Its metropolitan area is called Jabodetabek and contains more than 23 million people, and is part of an even larger Jakarta-Bandung megalopolis.
Jakarta is served by the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Since 2004, Jakarta, under the governance of Sutiyoso, has built a new bus system, which is known as "TransJakarta" or "Busway." Jakarta had hoped to establish its newest transportation system, the Jakarta Monorail, in 2007, but the project has been delayed and its completion date will very likely be pushed back. Jakarta also is the location of the Jakarta Stock Exchange and the National Monument.

Geography

Jakarta is located on the northwestern coast of Java Island, at the mouth of the Ciliwung River on Jakarta Bay, which is an inlet of the Java Sea. The northern part of Jakarta is constituted on a plain land, approximately eight meters above the sea level. This contributes to the frequent flooding. The southern parts of the city are hilly. There are about 13 rivers flowing through Jakarta, mostly flowing form the hilly southern parts of the city northwards towards the Java Sea. The most important river is the Ciliwung river, which divides the city into the western and eastern principalities. The city borders the province of West Java on its east side and the province of Banten on its west side.
The thousand islands, which is a part of the administrative region of Jakarta, is located in the Jakarta Bay. These 105 islets are located 45 km on the north part of the city.

Climate

Jakarta has a equatorial/tropical climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification system. Located in the western-part of Indonesia, Jakarta's wet season rainfall peak is January with average monthly rainfall of 350mm, and its dry season low point is August with a monthly average of 60mm. The city is humid throughout the year with daily temperature range of 25°C to 35°C.

History

The old name of Jakarta was Sunda Kalapa. The earliest record mentioning this area as a capital city can be traced to the Indianized kingdom of Tarumanagara as early as the fourth century. In 397 AD, King Purnawarman established Sunda Pura as a new capital city for the kingdom, located at the northern coast of Java. Purnawarman left seven memorial stones with inscriptions bearing his name spread across the area, including the present-day Banten and West Java provinces. The Tugu Inscription is considered the oldest of all of them.
   After Tarumanagara power declined, all his territories, including Sunda Pura, felt under the Kingdom of Sunda. The harbour area were renamed into Sunda Kalapa as written in a Hindu monk's lontar manuscripts, which are now located at the Oxford University Library in England, and travel records by Prince Bujangga Manik. By the 14th century, Sunda Kalapa became a major trading port for the kingdom. The first European fleet, four Portuguese ships from Malacca, arrived in 1513 when the Portuguese were looking for a route for spices and especially pepper.
   The Kingdom of Sunda made a peace agreement with Portugal by letting the Portuguese to build a port in 1522 in order to defend against the rising power of the Sultanate of Demak from the central of Java. In 1527, Fatahillah from Demak attacked Kingdom of Sunda and succeeded in conquering the harbour on June 22 1557, after which Sunda Kalapa was renamed into to Jayakarta. Through the relationship with Prince Jayawikarta from the Sultanate of Banten, Dutch ships arrived in Jayakarta in 1596. In 1602, the British East India Company's first voyage, commanded by Sir James Lancaster, arrived in Aceh and sailed on to Banten where they were allowed to build a trading post. This site became the center of British trade in Indonesia until 1682.
   Apparently, Jayawikarta also made a trading connection with the English merchants, the Dutch rivalry, by allowing them to build houses directly across from the Dutch buildings in 1615. When relations between Prince Jayawikarta and the Dutch later deteriorated, Jayawikarta's soldiers attacked the Dutch fortress. But even with the help of fifteen British ships, Prince Jayakarta's army wasn't able to defeat the Dutch, in part owing to the timely arrival of Jan Pieterszoon Coen (J.P. Coen). The Dutch burned the English fort, and forced the English retreat on their ships. With this victory, Dutch power in the area was consolidated. In 1619 they renamed the city "Batavia."
   Within Batavia's walls, wealthy Dutch built tall houses and pestilential canals. Commercial opportunities attracted Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations. On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were moved to Glodok outside the city walls. The city began to move further south as epidemics in 1835 and 1870 encouraged more people to move far south of the port. The Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square, was completed in 1818, and Kebayoran Baru was the last Dutch-built residential area. Projects in Jakarta included a clover-leaf highway, a major boulevard (Jalan Sudirman), monuments such as The National Monument, major hotels, and a new parliament building.
   In 1966, Jakarta was declared a "special capital city district" (daerah khusus ibukota), thus gaining a status approximately equivalent to that of a state or province. Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin served as Governor from this time to 1977; he rehabilitated roads and bridges, encouraged the arts, built several hospitals, and a large number of new schools. He also cleared out slum dwellers for new development projects—some for the benefit of the Suharto family—and tried to eliminate rickshaws and ban street vendors. He began control of migration to the city in order to stem the overcrowding and poverty. Land redistribution, structural adjustment, and foreign investment contributed to a real estate boom which changed the face of the city. The boom ended with the 1997/98 East Asian Economic crisis putting Jakarta at the center of violence, protest, and political maneuvering. Long-time president, Suharto, began to lose his grip on power. Tensions reached a peak in May 1998, when four students were shot dead at Trisakti University by security forces; four days of riots ensued resulting in the loss of an estimated 1,200 lives and 6,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. Suharto resigned as president, and Jakarta has remained the focal point of democratic change in Indonesia. A number of Jemaah Islamiah-connected bombings have occurred in the city since 2000.
   List of cities of Jakarta:

Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat)
East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur)
North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara)
South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan)

West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat) The only regency of Jakarta is:

Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu), formerly a subdistrict of North Jakarta.

Culture

As the economic and political capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts many foreign as well as domestic immigrants. As a result, Jakarta has a decidedly cosmopolitan flavor and a diverse culture. Many of the immigrants are from the other parts of Java Island, bringing along a mixture of dialects of the Javanese and Sundanese languages, as well as their traditional foods and customs.
   The Betawi (Orang Betawi, or "people of Batavia") is a term used to describe the descendants of the people living around Batavia and recognized as a tribe from around the 18th-19th century. The Betawi people are mostly descended from various Southeast Asian ethnic groups brought or attracted to Batavia to meet labor needs, and include people from various parts of Indonesia. The language and culture of these immigrants are distinct from those of the Sundanese or Javanese. The language is more based on East Malay dialect and enriched by loan words from other tribes such as Java, Chinese, Arab. Nowadays, the Jakarta-dialects used by people in Jakarta is loosely based on Betawi Language.
   There has also been a Chinese community in Jakarta for centuries. Officially they make up 6% of the Jakarta population, though this number may be under reported.
   Jakarta has several performance centers, such as the Senayan center. Traditional music is often found at high-class hotels, including wayang and gamelan performances. As the largest Indonesian city, Jakarta has lured much regional talent to relocate in hope of finding a greater audience and more opportunities for success.
   Ironically, the Betawi arts are rarely found in Jakarta due to their infamous low-profile and most of them had moved to the border of Jakarta, ridden by the wave of immigrant. It is easier to find Java or Minang based wedding ceremonial instead of Betawi wedding in Jakarta. It is easier to find Javanese Gamelan instead of Gambang Kromong (mixture between Betawi and Chinese music) or Tanjidor (mixture between Betawi and Portuguese music) or Marawis (mixture between Betawi and Yaman music). However, some festival such as Jalan Jaksa Festival or Kemang Festival tried to preserve the Betawi art by inviting the artist to do some performance.
   The concentration of wealth and political influence in the city means that it has much more noticeable foreign influence on its landscape and culture, an effect illustrated by the presence in the city of many major international fast-food chains, for example.

Transportation

One of the most populous cities in the world, Jakarta is strained by transportation problems. Notes BBC News, "Only 2% of Jakartans use public transport at the moment. Car users, meanwhile, are growing at a rate of 10% a year...Unless something is done, analysts say, the city will become completely gridlocked in the next few years."

Roads transport

Despite the presence of many wide roads, Jakarta suffers from congestion due to heavy traffic, especially in the central business district. To reduce traffic jams, some major roads in Jakarta have a 'three in one' rule during rush hours, first introduced in 1992, prohibiting fewer than three passengers per car on certain roads.
Jakarta's roads are notorious for indisciplined driver behavior; transportation laws are broken with impunity and police bribery is commonplace. The painted lines on the road are regarded as mere suggestions as vehicles often travel four or five abreast on a typical two-lane road. It isn't uncommon to encounter a vehicle traveling the wrong direction in a given traffic flow. Furthermore, in recent years the number of motorcycles on the streets has been growing almost exponentially. The vast sea of small, 100-200cc motorcycles, many of which have 2-stroke motors, create much of the traffic, noise and air pollution that plague Jakarta. Auto rickshaws, called becak, provide local transportation in the back streets of some parts of the city. From the early 1940s to 1991 they were a common form of local transportation in the city. In 1966, an estimated 160,000 rickshaws were operating in the city; as much as fifteen percent of Jakarta's total workforce was engaged in rickshaw driving. In 1971, rickshaws were banned from major roads, and shortly thereafter the government attempted a total ban, which substantially reduced their numbers but didn't eliminate them. An especially aggressive campaign to eliminate them finally succeeded in 1990 and 1991, but during the economic crisis of 1998, some returned amid less effective government attempts to control them.
The TransJakarta service operates on a special bus-line called the busway. The busway network is optimized for busy city routes and is a relatively effective alternative for travel in Jakarta. Construction of the 2nd and 3rd corridor routes of the busway was completed in 2006, serving the route from Pulogadung to Kalideres. The busway serving the route from Blok M to Jakarta Kota has been operational since January 2004. An outer ring road is now being constructed and is partly operational from Cilincing-Cakung-Pasar Rebo-Pondok Pinang-Daan Mogot-Cengkareng. A toll road connects Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the north of Jakarta. Also connected via toll road is the port of Merak and Tangerang to the west and Bekasi, Cibitung and Karawang, Purwakarta and Bandung to the east.

Rail and Waterway

There are railways throughout Jakarta; however, they're judged as being inadequate for providing necessary transportation for the citizens of Jakarta. In peak hours, the number of passengers greatly exceeds capacity. The railroad tracks connect Jakarta to its neighboring regions: Depok and Bogor to the south, Tangerang and Serpong to the west, and Bekasi, Karawang, and Cikampek to the east. The major rail stations are Gambir, Jatinegara, Pasar Senen, Manggarai, Tanah Abang and Jakarta Kota.
Two lines of the Jakarta Monorail are under construction: the green line serving Semanggi-Casablanca Road-Kuningan-Semanggi and the blue line serving Kampung Melayu-Casablanca Road-Tanah Abang-Roxy. In addition, there are plans for a two-line subway (MRT) system, with a north-south line between Kota and Lebak Bulus, with connections to both monorail lines; and an east-west line, which will connect with the north-south line at the Sawah Besar station. The current project, which began in 2005, has been halted due to a lack of funds and its future remains uncertain.
On 6 June 2007, the city administration started to introduce the Waterway, a new river boat service along the Ciliwung river. The move aims to reduce the traffic snarls in Jakarta.

Air

Soekarno-Hatta International Airport(CGK) is the primary airport for Jakarta and Indonesia alike. It is used by both private and commercial carriers connecting Jakarta with other Indonesian cities. It is also Indonesia's main international gateway. The airport is divided into three separate terminals. Terminal 1 serves all domestic airliners except Garuda Indonesia. Terminal 2 serves all foreign carriers and Garuda Indonesia (both domestic and international routes). Terminal 3 serves for hajj pilgrimage flights and for transnational migrant laborers. A second airport, Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport(HLP) serves mostly private and presidential flights.

Education

Jakarta is the home of many universities, the oldest of which are state-run University of Indonesia (UI) and the privately-owned Universitas Nasional (UNAS). There are also many other private universities in Jakarta. As the largest city and the capital, Jakarta houses a large number of students from various parts of Indonesia, many of whom reside in dormitories or home-stay residences. Similar to other large cities in developing Asian countries, there are many professional schools. For basic education, there are a variety of primary and secondary schools, tagged with public (national), private (national and bi-lingual national plus) and international schools.

Sports

Since Soekarno's era, Jakarta has often been chosen as the venue for international sport events, such as being the host of Asian Games in 1962, host of Asian Cup 2007 and several times hosting the regional-scale Sea Games. Jakarta is also home of several professional soccer clubs. The most popular of them is Persija, which regularly plays its matches in the Lebak Bulus Stadium. Another first division team is Persitara. The biggest stadium in Jakarta is the Bung Karno Stadium with a capacity of 100,000 seats. For basketball, the Kelapa Gading Sport Mall in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, with a capacity of 7,000 seats, is the home arena of the Indonesian national basketball team. Many international basketball matches are played in this stadium. The Senayan sports complex is comprised of several sport venues, which include the Bung Karno soccer stadium, Madya Stadium, Istora Senayan, a shooting range, a tennis court and a golf driving range. The Senayan complex was built in 1959 to accommodate the Asian Games in 1962.

Media

Newspapers

Jakarta has several daily newspaper such as Bisnis Indonesia, The Jakarta Post, Indo Pos, Seputar Indonesia, Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Pos Kota, Warta Kota, and Suara Pembaruan.

Television

Government television: TVRI.
   Private national television: TPI, RCTI, Metro TV, Indosiar, StarANTV, SCTV, Trans TV, Lativi, Trans 7, and Global TV.
   Local television: Jak-TV, O-Channel, and Space-Toon.
   Cable television: Indovision, ASTRO, TelkomVision, First Media

Radio

Problems

Population in excess of infrastructure

Like many big cities in developing countries, Jakarta suffers from major urbanization problems. The population has risen sharply from 1.2 million in 1960 to 8.8 million in 2004, counting only its legal residents. The population of greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the fourth largest urban area in the world. The rapid population growth has outgrown the government's ability to provide basic needs for its residents. As the third biggest economy in Indonesia, Jakarta has attracted a large number of visitors. The population during weekends is almost double that of weekdays, due to the influx of residents residing in other areas of Jabotabek. Because of government's inability to provide adequate transportation for its large population, Jakarta also suffers from severe traffic jams that occur almost every day. Air pollution and waste management are also severe problems. By 2025 the population of Jakarta may reach 24.9 million, not counting millions more in surrounding areas.

Sanitation

Surveys show that "less than a quarter of the population is fully served by improved water sources. The rest rely on a variety of sources, including rivers, lakes and private water vendors... Some 7.2 million people are [withoutclean water]."

Flooding

During the wet season, Jakarta suffers from flooding due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, and due to deforestation near rapidly urbanizing Bogor and Depok. Terrible floods occurred in 1996 when 5,000 hectares flooded and 2007. Losses from infrastructure damage and state revenue were at least 5.2 trillion rupiah (572 million US dollars) and at least 85 people were killed and about 350,000 people forced from their homes.. Approximately 70% or 75% of Jakarta's total area was flooded and water up to 4 meters deep in parts of city.

The informal sector

In September 2007, a new law was brought into effect which attempted to regulate aspects of public order. It forbids the giving of money to beggars, buskers and hawkers, bans squatter settlements on river banks and highways, prohibits spitting and smoking on public transportation. Unauthorized people cleaning car windscreens and managing traffic at busy intersections will also be penalized. Critics of the new legislation claim that such laws will be difficult to enforce and ignore the desperate poverty of many of the capital's inhabitants.

Sister relationships

Jakarta has sister relationships with a number of towns and regions worldwide:

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Beijing, China

Berlin, Germany

Istanbul, Turkey

Los Angeles, United States

State of New South Wales, Australia

Paris, France

Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Seoul, South Korea

Tokyo, Japan

External results

Click here for more details on Jakarta

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://jakarta.totallyexplained.com">Jakarta Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.