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Jakarta General Info
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For many Indonesians, Jakarta is the place where dreams are made. As the city where deals are won and lost, political alliances are forged and broken, and money apparently flutters into the hands of the fortunate from the summits of the city’s skyscrapers, the capital attracts Indonesians from the four corners of the archipelago, each eager to find the streets paved with gold. |
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Jakarta’s earliest history centers in the port of Sunda Kelapa, in the north of the modern city. |
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Jakarta sprawls more than 25km from the docks to the suburbs of south Jakarta, covering 661 sq km. |
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The informations of what you might need to know about Jakarta. |
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Jakarta is the main international gateway to Indonesia; for details on arriving here from overseas see the introductory Getting There & Away section at the start of this information section. Jakarta is also a major centre for domestic travel, with extensive bus, train, air and boat connections. |
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Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta international airport is 35km west of the city centre. A toll road links the airport to the city and the journey takes about an hour (longer in the rush hour). |
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(update 7 Agustus 2008)
Along the bay front, between Kota and Tanjung Priok, the people’s ‘Dreamland’ is built on land reclaimed in 1962. This huge landscaped recreation park, providing nonstop entertainment, has hotels, nightclubs, theaters and a variety of sporting facilities.
Taman Impian Jaya Ancol’s prime attractions include Pasar Seni, which has sidewalk cafés, a host of craft shops, art exhibitions, and live music every Friday and Saturday night. Seaworld aquarium, with its walk-through tunnel, a variety of pools and array of sea life, is worth seeing. Ancol also has the Gelanggang Samudra, another oceanarium with a boat ride and dolphin shows. |
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(update 7 Agustus 2008)
In the city’s southeast, near Kampung Rambutan, Taman Mini Indonesia Indah is one of those ‘whole country in one park’ collections popular in Asia. The idea for the park was conceived by Madame Tien Soeharto. In 1971, the families inhabiting the land were cleared out to make way for the project and the park was opened in 1975.
This 100-hectare park has a full-scale traditional house for each of Indonesia’s provinces with displays of regional handicrafts and clothing, and a large ‘lagoon’ where you can row around the islands of the archipelago or take a cable car across for a bird’s – eye view. |
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(update 7 Agustus 2008)
Just east of Merdeka Square, in front of the Borobudur Inter-Continental Hotel, Lapangan Banteng was laid out by the Dutch in the 19th century, and the areas has some of Jakarta’s best colonial architecture.
The Catholic cathedral has twin spires and was built in 1901 to replace an earlier church. Facing the cathedral is Jakarta’s principal place of Muslim worship, the modernistic Istiqlal Mesjid, which was constructed under Soekarno and is reputadly the largest mosque in Southeast Asia. |
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(update 8 Agustus 2008)
Ingloriously dubbed ‘Soekarno’s final erection’, this 132m-high column, towering over Merdeka Square, is both Jakarta’s principal landmark and the most famous architectural extravagance of the former dictator. Begun in 1961, as a symbol of Indonesia’s independence and strength, this typically masculine monument was not completed until 1975, when it was officially opened by Soeharto. The National Monument is allegedly constructed ‘entirely of Italian Marble’, and is topped with a sculpted flame, gilded with 35kg of gold leaf. |
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(update 8 Agustus 2008)
Eager to prevent a rerun of the Chinese massacre of 1740, the Dutch prohibited all Chinese from residing within the town walls, or even from being there after sundown. The following year, a tract of land just to the southwest of Batavia was allocated as Chinese quarters. The area became Glodok, Jakarta’s Chinatown, and the city’s flourishing commercial centre. |
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(update 8 Agustus 2008)
The old town of Batavia, now known as Kota, was once the hub of Dutch colonial Indonesia. It contained Coen’s massive shoreline fortress, the Kasteel, and was surrounded by a sturdy defensive wall and a moat. Much of this one-time grandeur has now rotted, crumbled, or been bulldozed away, but Taman Fatahillah, Kota’s central cobblestone square, is still reminiscent of the area’s heyday. |
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(update 8 Agustus 2008)
On the western side of Merdeka Square, the National Museum, built in 1862, is the best museum in Indonesia and one of the finest in Southeast Asia.
It has an enormous collection of cultural objects of the various ethnic groups around the country – costumes, musical instruments, model houses and so on – and numerous fine bronzes from the Hindu – Javanese period, as well as many interesting stone pieces salvaged from Central Javanese and other temples. There’s also a superb display of Chinese ceramics dating back to the Han dynasty, which was almost entirely amassed in Indonesia. |
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