48 Fun Facts About Jakarta

Which Jakarta governor went on to win Indonesia's presidency in 2014?

Joko Widodo, a furniture exporter turned mayor of Surakarta, governed Jakarta for just two years, from 2012 to 2014, before winning the presidency.

On which island does Jakarta lie?

Java is home to roughly half of all Indonesians, which is why the island dominates the country's politics and economy.

By what acronym is Greater Jakarta known locally?

Jabodetabek strings together Jakarta and its satellite cities Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi; a 2025 UN estimate of 41.9 million people made it, by that measure, the world's most populous city.

What name did the Dutch give the city they built on the ruins of Jayakarta in 1619?

Batavia honoured the Batavi, a Germanic tribe of the Rhine delta that once rebelled against Rome and that the Dutch of the day claimed as their ancestors.

Which pepper port of a Hindu kingdom stood on the site of Jakarta before the 1500s?

Sunda Kelapa was the main port of the Sunda kingdom, and it is still at work: wooden cargo schooners tie up at the old harbour to carry freight between the islands.

Which VOC governor-general destroyed Jayakarta in 1619 and refounded the city?

Jan Pieterszoon Coen was long honoured as a Dutch national hero, but his bloody 1621 conquest of the Banda Islands to seize the nutmeg trade has made him a deeply contested figure.

Which ride-hailing giant began in Jakarta as a call centre for just 20 motorcycle-taxi drivers?

Gojek's riders drive ojek, Jakarta's motorcycle taxis; customers had to phone in their orders until the app arrived in 2015 and added food delivery and shopping to the rides.

What happened to the Chinese community of Dutch-ruled Jakarta in October 1740?

A massacre by soldiers and mobs raged for two weeks after Chinese sugar workers, fearing that deportees were being thrown overboard at sea, rose in revolt.

Who renamed the city 'Jakarta' in 1942?

The Japanese occupation authorities dropped the Dutch colonial name in 1942, yet the old name stayed in international use until the Netherlands recognised Indonesian independence in 1949.

On what date was Indonesian independence proclaimed in Jakarta?

17 August 1945 came two days after the war in the Pacific ended: impatient youth activists had kidnapped the nationalist leaders the day before to press them into declaring independence at once.

To which city did the republican leaders move their temporary capital in 1946?

Yogyakarta took in the republic's government in January 1946 as Allied and Dutch forces took control of Jakarta, and its sultan, Hamengkubuwono IX, helped to fund the new government.

Which president's monument-building programme prepared Jakarta for the 1962 Asian Games?

Sukarno, who had trained as a civil engineer, ordered the Senayan sports complex, Hotel Indonesia and the Semanggi interchange built to show off the young republic to its Asian Games visitors.

Monas rises from the centre of which Jakarta square?

Merdeka Square covers about a square kilometre; the Dutch knew it as Koningsplein, 'King's Square', and it now carries the Indonesian word for freedom.

What crowns the top of Monas?

A gold-leaf flame, the 'Flame of Independence', stands for the burning spirit of the struggle against colonial rule; a lift carries visitors to an observation deck just beneath it.

Which animal, a bronze gift from the King of Siam in 1871, stands outside Jakarta's National Museum?

An elephant in bronze was presented by King Chulalongkorn in 1871, and Jakartans have called the museum Gedung Gajah, the 'Elephant Building', ever since.

What distinction does Jakarta's Istiqlal hold?

Largest mosque in Southeast Asia, Istiqlal was designed by Friedrich Silaban, a Protestant pastor's son who won the design competition for Indonesia's national mosque.

What was built to link Istiqlal with the Catholic cathedral across the road?

A pedestrian tunnel, the Terowongan Silaturahmi or 'Tunnel of Friendship', runs under the street between the mosque and the cathedral as a symbol of religious harmony.

What is the name of Jakarta's historic quarter, the core of the old Dutch walled city?

Kota Tua, or 'Old Town', was abandoned by the colonial government in 1808, when the governor-general moved the seat of power to higher, healthier ground further south.

What did the building that now houses the Jakarta History Museum open as in 1710?

The city hall, or Stadhuis, was the administrative heart of the Dutch company town, and the cells beneath its front portico served as dungeons until 1846.

Which traditional two-masted wooden cargo ships still load at Jakarta's old harbour?

Pinisi strictly names the rig and sails rather than the hull, and UNESCO listed the South Sulawesi craft of building these schooners as intangible heritage in 2017.

At the mouth of which river did the Dutch lay out the canal city that became Jakarta?

The Ciliwung rises in the highlands south of Bogor and flows through both cities; the Dutch channelled its final stretch into the canals of their walled town.

What is the name of the creole ethnic group native to Jakarta?

Betawi are one of Indonesia's youngest ethnic groups: they emerged in the colonial era as people from across the archipelago, China, Arabia and Europe blended in the port city.

Which Indonesian soup has a famous Jakarta version made with beef, offal and coconut milk or cow's milk?

Soto comes in many regional styles, and Jakarta's is the creamy one; the soup is so widely loved that it was named one of Indonesia's five national dishes in 2018.

What is kerak telor, a Jakarta Fair favourite?

A spicy omelette of glutinous rice and egg, kerak telor is cooked to order over charcoal and topped with shredded coconut and fried shallots; connoisseurs insist on duck egg over chicken.

Which giant puppet figures are a symbol of Jakarta's native performance culture?

Ondel-ondel were once paraded around villages to ward off evil spirits and disease; today the towering pair, one male and one female, mostly turns out for festivals and welcomes.

Where is Nusantara, the capital city Indonesia began building in 2022?

East Kalimantan, on Borneo, was picked in 2019 because it lies near the centre of the archipelago and faces little risk of natural disasters.

Which threat to Jakarta helped drive Indonesia's decision to build a new capital?

Land subsidence and flooding feed each other: with groundwater pumped out from beneath it, parts of North Jakarta were sinking by up to 25 cm a year in 2018, and almost half the city lay below sea level.

Which islands north of the city form Jakarta's only regency?

The Thousand Islands fall far short of their name: depending on who is counting, the chain has somewhere between about 110 and 350 islands.

Which nickname, echoing New York's 'Big Apple', do expats and travel writers give Jakarta?

The Big Durian likens the city to Southeast Asia's spiky, strong-smelling fruit: like the durian, the sprawling capital can be a shock at first sight and smell.

Which country's loan helped pay for Jakarta's main stadium, built for the 1962 Asian Games?

The Soviet Union granted a soft loan of $12.5 million and sent specialists to help build the arena; the president drove the first pile in 1960, and the finished stadium held 110,000.

With which city did Jakarta co-host the 2018 Asian Games?

Palembang, on Sumatra, shared the Games after the original host, Hanoi, pulled out in 2014 because Vietnam feared the cost, and Indonesia stepped in with two cities.

What was Transjakarta, launched in January 2004?

Southeast Asia's first bus rapid transit system took its concept from Bogotá's TransMilenio: buses run in their own dedicated lanes, so they can slip past the city's traffic jams.

Which country's loans paid for Jakarta's first metro line, which opened in 2019?

Japan signed the first loan for the line in 2006, reviving a metro plan that had been stuck on the drawing board since 1985.

Jakarta's main airport is named after which two founding leaders?

Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed Indonesian independence together; the airport named for the pair lies in neighbouring Tangerang.

What is Jakarta's principal seaport and Indonesia's busiest?

Tanjung Priok was begun in 1877 partly for the extra shipping the Suez Canal brought, but chiefly so that ocean-going ships could berth at a quay instead of unloading into boats offshore.

What traffic-control scheme does Jakarta use on selected roads?

Odd-even licence-plate restrictions replaced the old 'three-in-one' carpool rule in 2016, after drivers took to picking up roadside 'jockeys' as extra passengers to beat it.

Whose idea was Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, the park of provinces in miniature?

Tien Suharto, the first lady, proposed the park in 1970 in the hope of stirring national pride; it opened in 1975 with a pavilion for each of the country's then 26 provinces.

Which Jakarta waterfront resort, opened in 1966, is home to the Dunia Fantasi theme park?

Ancol was still an empty, mosquito-ridden swamp on the city's northern edge in the 1950s, before it was turned into a seaside playground of beaches, water parks and rides.

Which record did Jakarta's Autograph Tower claim when it topped out in 2020?

Tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere at about 383 metres, it qualifies because Jakarta lies just south of the equator; it overtook Auckland's Sky Tower as the hemisphere's tallest structure.

Which Jakarta monument of a waving pair greeted visitors to the 1962 Asian Games?

Selamat Datang means 'welcome': the president ordered the bronze pair for the Games, Jakarta's deputy governor Henk Ngantung sketched it, and the sculptor Edhi Sunarso made it.

Which international body has its secretariat in Jakarta?

ASEAN was founded in Bangkok in 1967 but keeps its permanent secretariat in Jakarta, which is why many countries post a separate ambassador to the bloc there.

Which governor of 1966-77 modernised Jakarta and expanded its kampung improvement programme?

Ali Sadikin legalised gambling and used the tax it raised to build up the city, while his Kampung Improvement Program brought basic services to its dense old neighbourhoods.

The 5th-century Tugu inscription, among the oldest writing found in Jakarta, is composed in which classical language?

Sanskrit verse on the egg-shaped stone records King Purnawarman having a canal dug in just 21 days; the stone is now kept in the National Museum.

Which Jakarta district was laid out in the 1910s as a garden suburb for well-off Europeans?

Menteng was the colonial capital's first garden suburb; its leafy streets later housed Indonesian presidents and a young Barack Obama, who spent part of his childhood there.

Jakarta's Special Capital Region holds the same rank as which kind of Indonesian administrative unit?

A province in rank, Jakarta is run by an elected governor, while the mayors of its five component cities are appointed by the governor rather than voted in.

Which British official governed the colony after Britain seized the Dutch colonial capital in 1811?

Stamford Raffles governed the colony for about five years before it went back to the Dutch, and in 1819 he founded the rival trading post that grew into Singapore.

Which 82,000-seat football stadium with a retractable roof opened in North Jakarta in 2022?

Jakarta International Stadium was planned as a new home for the club Persija after its old Lebak Bulus ground was torn down to make way for the city's new metro.

Which Jakarta district, where Chinese residents were resettled outside the city walls in 1741, became its Chinatown?

Glodok grew from that enforced quarter into one of Jakarta's biggest electronics markets, and its shops were among the main targets of the riots of May 1998.