[edit]Land area
The Greater Jakarta Special Region covers an area of 650.4 square kilometers and is divided into five municipalities, namely, East, South, West, North, and Central Jakarta, with East Jakarta having the largest area of 178.07 square kilometers.
[edit]History
Jakarta has a long history, as early as the 14th century has become the beginning of the scale of the port city, then called Sunda Garaba, meaning "coconut", the Chinese called it "coconut city". Around the 16th century, the name was changed to Jakarta, meaning "Fortress of Victory and Glory". The port belonged to the Bajajara dynasty in the 14th century, and was conquered by the Kingdom of Banten in 1522, when the city was founded, and on June 22, 1527, the name was changed to Jaya Galdar, meaning "City of Triumph", or Jakarta for short, before the Dutch invaded Indonesia in 1596, and changed the name of the city to the Dutch name "Batavia" in 1621, and then to "Batavia". "On August 8, 1942, after the Japanese invaded Indonesia, the name of Jakarta was restored, and on August 17, 1945, the State of Indonesia was officially established, with Jakarta as its capital. On January 31, 1950, Jakarta was renamed Greater Jakarta City, and in 1961, it was changed to Greater Jakarta Special Zone. Jakarta's founding day is June 22, and large-scale commemorative events are held on this day every year.
[edit]Development
Jakarta is a city with a long history. Hundreds of years ago, it was already a famous seaport for exporting pepper and spices, known as Sundargarapa, which means "Land of Coconut Groves" or "World of Coconut Groves. In 1527, Muslim leaders led the Indonesian people to defeat the Portuguese colonial fleet, recovered Gondagarapa, renamed this place as Jaya Galdar, which means "City of Victory", "Glorious Fortress", from which the name of Jakarta evolved. After 1596, the Dutch colonialists ruled Indonesia under the Dutch alias of Batavia. 1800, Indonesia became part of the Netherlands. In 1800, Indonesia became part of the Netherlands and was called "Dutch East Indies", and Batavia became the base camp of the Dutch colonizers to exploit and enslave Indonesia. In the Second World War, the Japanese imperialists occupied Indonesia, and it was only after Indonesia declared independence in 1945 that the name Jakarta was restored and made the capital.
Today's Jakarta, has become Indonesia's political, economic and cultural center, the hub of land and sea transportation, is the traffic throat between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, but also an important bridge from Asia to Oceania. Many ships, both domestic and foreign, use Jakarta as a stopover to refill water for repairs. The international airport on the outskirts of the city is one of the largest international air terminals in the world.
[edit]Overall Impression
Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is undoubtedly a city of contrasts between tradition and modernity, wealth and poverty. At a glance, it looks like a cluttered jungle of reinforced concrete. Looking down from the heights of the city, you can see low-slung tiled houses mixed in with high-rise buildings, asphalt boulevards criss-crossed with stone alleys, and glittering high-class hotels and high-tech centers situated not far from noisy, crowded villages. It all adds up to a sense that Jakarta needs a better urban vision as it strives to grow its economy.
[edit]City Divisions
Jakarta's urban area is divided into two parts, with the coastal area in the north being the old city, the center of shipping and commerce. To the south is the new area, the administrative center. Today it is so connected that it is difficult to distinguish between the two. Independence Square in the center of Jakarta, green grass, a group of flowers. To the east of the square is the State Palace, originally the official residence of the Dutch Governor, is now Indonesia's presidential palace. To the west of the square is the National Museum, one of the seven museums in Jakarta and the largest in Southeast Asia. It is an old European-style building. In the museum, a model map of the Indonesian archipelago is very striking, with statues of people from various ethnic groups, from which you can see the distribution of ethnic groups, languages and economic development of the whole of Indonesia. Also on display are Buddhist and Hindu stone statues, ancient coins, seals, large scales, wooden utensils and classical musical instruments. In the Ceramics Museum, porcelain of various shapes and sizes, mostly from the Tang, Song, Ming and Qing dynasties of China, are on display. Some of the ancient porcelains date back to the Shang and Zhou periods. These porcelains are witnesses to the friendly exchanges between Indonesian and Chinese people over the centuries, and also epitomize the Indonesian society and culture.
Jakarta is one of the three major tourist cities in Indonesia, the city is tree-lined, the streets are planted with evergreen trees, the world-famous Bogor Botanical Gardens and Tea Gardens are located here, as well as the Independence Square Park, Indonesia's miniature park, Anjor Fantasy Park, the Thousand Islands, the Central Museum, the Istiqlal Mosque and other places of interest. Kota, the center of the old 17th century Dutch town of Batavia, is surrounded by the cobbled Taman Fatahillah Square. From Kota, a fine old Dutch building, head north to the old Sunda Kelapa, a reminder of the days when sailing ships from around the world came together.
[Edit]City Profile
The city is home to the country's largest financial, industrial and commercial head offices, hundreds of domestic and international corporate offices, and a number of large-scale integrated markets and specialized shopping malls. The Jakarta Trade Fair is held here every year. It is the largest industrial center in the country. The main industries are shipbuilding, textile, automobile, assembly, building materials, shipbuilding, chemical, fertilizer, food processing, tanning and printing. Industry is developing towards the suburbs. There are 6 highways and railroads meeting here on the island of Java, which is a transportation hub. The outer harbor, Tanjung Priok, is the largest in the country. Jankaran Airport is an important transit point for international air and sea routes between Europe and Oceania. There are 40 hospitals and more than 100 colleges and universities, of which the University of Indonesia is the most famous. There are also many research institutes, stadiums, aquariums, zoos, orchid gardens, performance centers, and seaside attractions. The Central Museum is the largest in the country and the largest in Southeast Asia. It publishes 25 newspapers, 5 weekly magazines, a national radio station and a national television station. Places of interest include the Old Portuguese Church, the National Archives, the Presidential Palace, the Istiklal Mosque, the Old City Hall, the Irian National Monument, the large amusement park at Pinariya Beach, the Dreamland, the Jakarta Miniature Park, the Laguna Zoo, the Cibanas Summer Resort, and the Cibodas Botanical Garden. The layout of the city is quite British. The first Asian Games and Southeast Asian Games were held here.
[edit]Climatic characteristics
Jakarta's terrain is high in the south and low in the north, with 10 rivers of various sizes passing through the city, the most famous being the Chirion River. Jakarta has a tropical rainforest climate with an average annual temperature of 27 degrees. Under the influence of the equator, the west monsoon is from November to April, and the east monsoon is from May to October. The entire region consists of Pleistocene sedimentary layers, with the southern part being part of the alluvial layer. The land is fertile, with plants evergreen and flowers blooming throughout the seasons.
[edit]Major industries
Jakarta has long been the country's economic center, with major industrial sectors such as shipbuilding, textiles, automobile assembly, construction materials, chemicals and food processing. Indonesia is the largest oil producer in Southeast Asia, and Jakarta's refineries are expanding year by year, with much of the product being exported through foreign ports.
[edit]Commerce and Trade
The earliest settlements appeared in the 5th century, and it became an important commercial port in the 15th century, trading with Champa, Megaport, and China, etc. In the 16th century, it was occupied by the Kingdom of Banten, and was renamed as Jakarta, which means "Fortress of Victory". In the late 16th century, the Dutch and the Portuguese established a trading post here, which was called Jakarta for short. 1619, when the Dutch trading post was destroyed, the city was built again and called Batavia, which became the capital of the Dutch East Indies, and gradually developed into the contact center of the world maritime trade and expanded the trade to three continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa, and became the main city and the administrative center of Indonesia. 1949, after the independence of the country, the name was resumed as Jakarta, and it was designated as the capital city of the Special Administrative Region in 1966. It was occupied by Japan in World War II. The population is growing rapidly, with immigrants mainly from Java and Sumatra. The majority of the employed population is engaged in commerce, trade and banking, followed by services, industry and transportation. The city is divided into two districts, the old and the new. The old district near the sea is the commercial center and the new district is the administrative center.
[edit]City symbols
The tallest building in the city, the Independence Memorial Tower, is the symbol of Jakarta. Built by President Sukarno, this marble monument is 137 meters high and is topped by a torch sculpture made of 35 kilograms of pure gold, symbolizing Indonesia's spirit of independence.
[Edit]Tourism Resources
In Jakarta, there is a unique tourist attraction that is crowded with tourists every day, which is affectionately known as "Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature" (also known as Mini Park). This miniature park will be Indonesia's national islands and mountains, cities and ports, places of interest and customs in accordance with the geographic location of the whole country, in a miniature situation artistically displayed in front of the visitors. Located 10 kilometers south of Jakarta, the 120-hectare park was inaugurated in 1972 and inaugurated on April 20, 1975, with a total area of 120 hectares. At the gate of the park "Indonesia in miniature", a bird's-eye view of the panorama, "the country of a thousand islands" in full view. An island, a piece of land, from east to west, like a pearl, set in the Indian Ocean, the Java River.
In the "miniature park", the landscape of Indonesia's 27 provinces, different styles of architecture are built according to the original. Here you can enjoy the tropical scenery of Sumatra, see the solemn and elegant white temple and the world-famous Borobudur in Central Java small stupa, you can also roam the island of Irian Jaya, "tropical forest", to see the old and outdated dugout canoes, with tree trunks made of high-rise thatched huts and coconut groves in the golden palace! and much more. Most of the buildings and figures in the miniature park are made of clay, which is a masterpiece of Indonesian clay art. In every house and courtyard, in every forest and meadow, there are statues of people, birds and animals of the same size and proportion as the real thing. Shapes and colors, thousands of forms, lifelike, as if in reality. In the park on the side of the gate, built a circular screen movie theater. Its external image of a golden conch, covers an area of 600 square meters, the museum has 800 seats, the screen is the world's largest one, dedicated to the screening of the introduction of Indonesian customs and habits, history and geography, economic and cultural documentaries. When the movie starts, the audience, though sitting on the chairs, feels that one moment they are traveling by plane through the Grand Canyon of Indonesia, the other moment they are overlooking the volcano that is spewing lava and ash, they can see the Madura people racing bulls or witness the Irian people reveling in the carnival, they can take part in the funeral of a Balinese person, or attend the traditional Javanese wedding ceremony, and they can also smell the sweetness of the bamboo rice.
The new district, Denmlin Avenue, is wide and neat, with modern and luxurious buildings juxtaposed. This is a place where banks and big companies gather, and is known as the "Wall Street" of Indonesia.
[edit]Main Attractions
Istikhlal Mosque
Istikhlal Mosque is the largest mosque in Indonesia, located in the northeast of Jakarta's Independence Square, built in 1979. The mosque covers an area of 93.5 hectares and has a floor area of 93,400 square meters. There is a huge semicircular roof painted white, very eye-catching.
Indonesia's major Islamic activities and ceremonies are held here, the President of Indonesia and government dignitaries often go here to worship.
Jakarta Independence Square
Independence Square is located in the central district of Jakarta, also known as Merdeka Square (Merdeka for the meaning of independence), with the status and scale of Tiananmen Square. It is surrounded by wide and neat streets, dotted with flowers and trees, and full of greenery.
Square North for the Presidential Palace, northeast of Indonesia's largest Istihel Grand Mosque; West Street on the Ministry of Defense Compound and the Central Museum; east of the train station. On the southeast corner of the square is a spectacular sculpture of a group of horses pulling a cart based on the storyline in the epic of Moksha Brahmaputra. There is a musical fountain in the park to the west of the monument.
Indonesia Miniature Park
Indonesia Miniature Park is located about 26 kilometers east of downtown Jakarta and was completed in 1975. It is equivalent to a miniature of Indonesia with models of various physical objects such as houses, lakes, parks, monumental towers, shopping centers, amphitheaters, cable cars, trains, water pedicabs, and so on, from all over Indonesia.
In the center of the park there is a giant model map of the Indonesian archipelago, and the surrounding garden is divided into 27 zones, representing the 27 provinces and districts of Indonesia, such as Central Java, Bali, Jakarta, and so on. In each zone, there are buildings with local traditional features and plants that are unique to the region. Visitors can also take a boat tour of the "Islands of Indonesia".
The Indonesia Miniature Park has a museum, a library, a video center, a juvenile hall, and a children's playground, where young people can come regularly to learn traditional music and dance. One of the most prominent buildings is the Golden Snail Panoramic Cinema, which shows panoramic movies such as "Beautiful Indonesia" on a daily basis.
National Monument
The National Monument, the symbol of Jakarta, is located in the center of Independence Square Park in the heart of the city, and was completed in 1968 after being built by order of the first President of Indonesia, Mr. Sukarno, in 1959.
The monument is 137 meters high and is topped by a torch sculpture made of 35 kilograms of gold, symbolizing Indonesia's spirit of independence. The reliefs on the monument reflect the heroic deeds of the Indonesian people who resisted Dutch colonial rule. Beside the monument there are also fountains, pools and statues of national heroines.
Central Museum
The Central Museum is located in the center of the city on Independence Street West, west of Independence Square, was built in 1868, is the largest and most extensive collection of museums in Indonesia. The museum is a European-style white building. In front of the museum on the lawn piers there is a bronze elephant, for the King of Siam Rama V in 1871 when he visited the gift, so the museum is also known as the "Elephant Museum" or "Elephant House".
The museum has a gold and silver jewelry room, bronze room, currency room, antiquities exhibition room, prehistoric exhibition room, wood exhibition room, folklore exhibition room, the East India Company exhibition room, including 300,000 years ago Javanese ape fossil skulls, 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, China's Bronze Age tripods and gei, Chinese ancient ceramics and ancient coins, the Java island of the Buddha's head, the unique Sumatran houses, models, as well as shadow puppets, puppets, and other items. models, and props for shadow puppets and puppet shows.
Anjor Fantasy Park
Anjor Fantasy Park is the largest amusement park in Indonesia, which is located in the north end of Jakarta city, close to Jakarta Bay. In the park, there is a new design of large hotels, open-air cinema, aquariums, dolphin show pools, large swimming pools with man-made waves, tennis courts, Haibin cottages, art exhibition and sale booths, boomerang courses, golf courses, bowling alleys, sports car parks, horse racing, beaches, nightclubs, steam baths, casinos, massage parlors, children's entertainment, etc.
Anzor Fantasy Park is the largest amusement park in Indonesia.
There is also a villa area in the Fantasy Park with typical Indonesian national characteristics. The art market displays Indonesian folk crafts, and artists are on hand to make paintings and carvings for visitors. At dusk, the open-air stage will perform the native dances of Bali, Kalimantan and other places
[Edit]Transportation
Indonesia has very convenient transportation, with the aviation network centered on Jakarta and intertwined with domestic and foreign major cities, and the train taking Jakarta as the starting station and traveling between Java and Sumatra, the highway of Jakarta is in good condition, and the tour buses and special buses are traveling between the roundabouts, and the main means of transportation in the city is the train. Jakarta highways are in good condition, tourist buses and special buses travel between the roundabouts, and the main means of transportation in the city are taxis and tricycles.
Aviation:
Air China operates weekly flights from Beijing to Jakarta via Xiamen, Indonesia; China Southern Airlines operates weekly flights from Guangzhou, China to Jakarta, Indonesia; and Indonesia Eagle Airlines operates weekly flights from Jakarta, Indonesia to Guangzhou, China.
Airport:
SoekarnoHatta International Airport is located about 20 kilometers west of the city center. In the center of the airport are three aviation buildings, one dedicated to international flights and the remaining two for domestic flights. The first floor of the international terminal is the arrivals hall, which has a money changer and a travel service center, while the second floor is the departures hall, which has a restaurant, duty-free store, and a gift store. It takes about half an hour to get to the city by cab or bus. Airport tax is Rp 15,000 for international flights and Rp 5,500 for domestic flights.
Trains:
Trains that travel around the island from Jakarta are:
Bima: Jakarta - Yogyakarta - Surabaya 16 hours 30 minutes
Mutiara: Jakarta - Surabaya: 15 hours 30 minutes
Parahyangan: Jakarta - Bandung 3 Train Station:
The main stations in the city are Kuta Station (J1.stasiunNO.1) and "Gam-bir" Station (J1.MerdekaTimur).
By Car:
Tourist buses and special buses are available in green, blue, yellow and red and white colors and run on different routes, and air-conditioned buses running between Jakarta - Bali are operated by SariExpress.
[edit]Food and Drink
Indonesia's food culture has become internationalized. In the capital city of Jakarta, the flavors of the world's cuisine, such as Chinese, European, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean and Indian, are available. Especially Chinese food, Indonesia's larger towns and cities have opened Chinese restaurants, tourists do not have to worry about eating Chinese food wherever they go. Among the Chinese restaurants, there are Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan, Shanghai and Shandong restaurants, but Cantonese restaurants are the most popular. Chinese restaurants serve turtle soup, which is much cheaper than in China, and is very popular with the Chinese. Indonesian cuisine is similar to that of most Southeast Asian countries, with heavier flavors, dishes are often flavored with coconut milk and various spices such as pepper, cloves, dukkah, curry, etc., and chili sauce is often available on the table. The most typical dishes from all over Indonesia are Padang dishes, which are famous for their deep-fried and spicy flavors, and visitors who like to eat spicy food may want to give it a try.
Most Indonesians are Muslims and do not eat pork, but rather beef and lamb. Balinese people are the opposite, they believe in Hinduism, do not eat beef, but to eat chicken, pork-based. Indonesia's most common dishes are mixed mixed vegetables (gado a gado), grilled lamb kebabs (sate, that is, satay), grilled fish (ikan panggang), grilled beef (sapipang-gang), grilled lamb (kambing panggang) and so on. Soups such as beef soup (sotosapi), lamb soup (sotokambing) and chicken soup (soto ayam) are commonly used. Because of the hot weather, Indonesians generally do not like to eat hot rice, hot dishes, and do not drink very hot soup. It is customary to drink coffee or tea after meals, usually with sugar. Indonesians are accustomed to drinking black tea, many people also began to like to drink jasmine tea and green tea. Indonesians like to eat sweets, more varieties of after-dinner snacks, common fried bananas and with rice flour, glutinous rice flour, flour, tapioca, soybean flour with coconut, sugar and other made of various pastries. In the eastern region, pastries are often made with sago flour. In addition, Indonesians also commonly used dried bananas, fried banana chips to entertain guests.
The Indonesian market has a wide variety of fruits. The most foreign tourists like is the local production of a variety of tropical fruits, such as "king of fruits" you durian, "fruit after" the name of the mangosteen, as well as mango, rambutan, dugu, snakeskin fruit, papaya, human heart fruit, cowberry, passion fruit, banana, Pineapple, lychee, avocado, grapefruit and orange. Apples, pears, mandarin oranges, grapes and other fruits imported from the United States, China, and Australia are of the best quality and are popular with the local people, but they are more expensive. In restaurants or banquet tables, also commonly used watermelon, blancmange melon, etc. as after-dinner fruit.
As a table drink, commonly used in a variety of wine, mineral water, beer and a variety of fruit juices. Indonesia's largest production of mineral water, brand "Agua" (Aqua), in order to order mineral water, say "Agua" can be. Indonesia's domestic beer, brand name "Bintang" (Bintang), is well known in the country, large and small restaurants have to supply. Chinese Tsingtao Beer has begun to enter the Indonesian market, but is only available in a few Chinese restaurants. Fruit juices commonly used at the table include coconut, orange, watermelon and blancmange. Fresh coconuts can be found everywhere in Indonesia, at various tourist attractions, and are cheap, making them a very popular drink.
Indonesia's market, in addition to textiles and services, the price of general merchandise is not cheaper than China, it is not necessary to spend money to buy general merchandise, but to buy handicrafts and souvenirs with Indonesian characteristics.
[edit]Craft products
Indonesia's handicrafts and souvenirs have a wide variety of colors and unique features. Among them are Badi cloth, Gris short sword, wood carvings, silver products, copper or copper alloy idols, shadow puppets, puppetry puppets, landscape models such as Borobudur stupa, Prambanan Ling Temple, etc., colored shellfish products, clove string artwork, natural gemstones, Indonesian landscapes, such as Bali, etc., decorative fans, cow horns made of handicrafts, kernel small crafts, Lombok ceramic pots, are the favorite items of foreign tourists.
Indonesia's silver products are divided into two categories, one is familiar to us as sterling silver or silver alloy made of decorative items, the other type of silver products is a slender strand of silver according to the design of the pattern welded. Their works are exquisite workmanship, exquisite and very beautiful. Silver handicrafts of many shapes, there are some small and delicate flower-shaped silver brooch, silver earrings, both beautiful and portable, often become the first choice of tourists.
Bardi cloth is a kind of wax-dyed printed cloth, which is characterized by the cloth printed with colorful colorful patterns, geometric shapes, but also a variety of bird and flower patterns, symmetrical patterns, there are also asymmetrical patterns. Its colors are generally black, red, yellow as the main color, bright and cheerful, there are also blue, brown, white as the main, looks heavy and deep. This kind of cloth is not only loved by the Indonesian people, but also has long been known around the world. Long-sleeved men's shirts and women's sarongs made of it have been designated as Indonesia's national costume, suitable for wearing in various formal and informal occasions.
Tourists in the purchase of badi cloth, moral should pay attention to its manufacturing process, with traditional hand-drawn printing and dyeing of badi cloth, fine workmanship, columns have artistic value, but because of the time-consuming and laborious, generally more expensive. Mechanism of Badi cloth, due to high production, the price is relatively cheap, more affordable, but the artistic value is inferior to handmade products.
Indonesia's wood carvings, especially Bali wood carvings, renowned both at home and abroad, foreign guests traveling to Indonesia almost no one did not buy a piece of Bali wood carvings to stay as a souvenir. Bali wood carving is a traditional crafts, it is initially closely related to the religious beliefs of the Balinese people.
People worship the Hindu gods carved out of stone or wood, enshrined in temples, courtyards and chambers. Later, they passed it down from generation to generation, creating countless artisans who could carve and sculpt. Most of the Balinese wood carvings are made of hard, fine-grained ebony, teak and other wood carvings, and their shapes are many and varied, with lifelike eagles, sacred cows, lions, bulls and other animals and birds, Balinese fishermen, young girls, popular legends in folk tales, but also a variety of contemporary abstract art images.
[edit]Specialties
Indonesia is famous for its souvenirs around the world, and the first thing that comes to mind is the Indonesian Flower Cloth (Badi Cloth), which is a delicate and ornate pattern that expresses the characteristics of Indonesia. This is a technique passed down from the Indonesian royal family in the 12th century, whereby the cloth is batiked to make geometric rows of animals and human figures in the traditional blue and teal colors.
Secondly, there are Indonesian handicrafts, which are varied and rich in southern flavor. Among them, Gris short swords, wood carvings, shadow puppets, puppet theater puppets, banyan wood canes and silver products are the most collectible.
Indonesia produces a variety of spices, a variety of noon spice flavor, coupled with spicy will become the characteristics of Indonesian cuisine. Dishes around Indonesia, the most typical is satay, authentic Indonesian satay is beef, lamb or chicken cut into square slices, with red onions, chili, sugar, sour fruit and other seasonings marinated for two hours and then grilled, a glass of cold Indonesian beer, eat a string of satay, the joy of it. "Increased ice" is a chic dessert, made of green bean powder like pudding vegetable jelly, there is a crystal, put coconut milk and Java sugar, it becomes a special flavor of Indonesia.
Java coffee is also worth tasting, most of all because the Indonesian style of drinking is different, in Indonesia is not to drink hot coffee, slightly cooled before the top of the coffee.
[Edit]Water City of the East
Jakarta was a coastal town in the Batavia era, when the Dutch colonists used man-made rivers and canals as a drainage system for the city, and also as an important transportation hub. Small boats, which could carry about 10 people, were the most common means of transportation in those days. People used these boats to travel around the city every day. Jakarta was called the Venice of the East by the western world.
With the development of the times, the number of roads has increased, such as: highway, busway (Busway), etc., Indonesia's largest city has rarely seen this kind of transportation, instead of modern transportation - cars, motorcycles and other motor vehicles. What used to be known as the "Venice of the East" is now a thing of the past, and people seem to have forgotten all about the old traditions and customs.
However, there are still some areas in Jakarta, such as Sunter, Ancol, and Tj.Priok, where you can still see these traditional boats, but they are no longer used for transportation, and they are used as ferries to get people across the river. Some of the old people living in the old days also from time to time to recall the old days of Jakarta flavor, can not help but sigh a sigh.
In fact, as long as the canal through the city clean, in the era of rapid development still retains such local traditions and customs, will become one of the attractions of Jakarta's characteristics of the attraction of tourists. Just like the "floating market" in Thailand is one of the must-see attractions for tourists from all over the world when traveling to Thailand.