Jakarta Travel Guide

Jakarta is the biggest city in Indonesia with a role as the capital of Indonesia as well as the government center of Indonesia. Jakarta is also one of the 33 provinces in Indonesia, and therefore governed by a governor who reports to the President of Indonesia through the Internal Affairs Minister. Due to the multi role as both a province and the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta then given a status of Special Capital Region (Daerah Khusus Ibukota=DKI). DKI Jakarta has five municipalities and administrative regency. The five municipalities are North Jakarta (Jakarta Utara), East Jakarta (Jakarta Timur), West Jakarta (Jakarta Barat), South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan), Central Jakarta (Jakarta Pusat), and Thousand Islands Regency (Kepulauan Seribu). Each municipality headed by a Mayor who assists to prepare the planning of their region. Thousand Island is headed by a Regent who’s responsible on the financial matters.

History

The history of Jakarta began from a small port at the mouth of Ciliwung River, centuries ago. The port city then emerged to become a busy international trading center. Journals of European journalist in 16th century mentioned that there’s a city, named Kalapa (Kelapa in Sundanese called kalapa, means coconut), seemed as the main port for a Hindu Kingdom named Sunda, with a capital of Pajajaran, located near to the current location of Bogor. Portuguese was the first fleet from Europe that arrived at Kalapa Port.

Proclamation MonumentThe port city was then attacked by its neighbor, Demak Kingdom, under the leadership of Fatahillah. On 22nd June, 1527, Kelapa Port was taken away and the name was then changed to Jayakarta, which meant a city of glory and victory. 22nd June1527 then recognized as birthday of Jakarta. Dutch fleet arrived at the 16th century which soon dominated Jayakarta and changed the name to Batavia. At the era when Japanese dominated Indonesia, from 1942 to 1945, the name of Batavia was changed to Jakarta. On 17th August 1945, Ir. Soekarno proclaimed the freedom of Indonesia in Jakarta, when red and white flag of Indonesia was officially raised for the first time. The sovereignty of Indonesia officially acknowledged in 1949 after Indonesia joined the United Nation. In 1966 Jakarta was officially announced as the capital of Indonesia.

Demographic

Total population of Jakarta is about 10 million people. The population of Jakarta is increased at day time when the workers whose resident are at small towns around Jakarta like Bekasi, Tangerang, Bogor and Depok coming to Jakarta for work. East Jakarta which population is about two million people is the most populated municipality, while Thousand Islands with about 20,000 population is the least populated regency. Indonesian language (Bahasa Indonesia) is the language used in daily conversation. Regional languages still used by those people originated from the same region. However, since Jakarta people originated from various ethnicities so the main language used is Indonesian language. For some of Jakarta people such as students, workers or businessmen, English start to be commonly used. Other foreign languages that were interesting to be studied by some of Jakarta people are Dutch, France, Germany, Mandarin, Arabic and Japanese.

Culture

The ethnic of Betawi is the original people lived in Jakarta. At the beginning of Jakarta city, there were some people from different ethnics like Sundanese, Javanese, Balinese, Malayan, Maluku people, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, Arabian, Indian and some other ethnics living in Jakarta brought various kind of culture to Jakarta. The colloquial language used in daily communication was Malay with some influence of Portuguese, Chinese and English on the dialect. Those people from different ethnics then slowly assimilated one another and finally lost of their original culture. From the assimilation process of those ethnics then a new kind of ethnic was born, that was Betawi. Betawi people have a unique culture that easily recognized from their dialect, cloth, and arts. Situ Babakan, a cultural preserve, was founded to preserve the culture of Betawi people.


Interesting Places in Jakarta

Jakarta is a metropolitan city which has millions enchantments to enjoy. There are many comfortable malls and luxurious plazas for shopping, entertainment places like bars, night club, discotheques and live music, as well as international restaurants serving good taste cuisines. Besides modernity, there’re many simplicity you could see in Jakarta, such as small shops (warung) under the tent, sidewalk shops, bajaj (three wheeled vehicle), and bicycle ojek (ride by bicycle).