Portal:Jakarta

Jakarta, officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia, with administrative status equivalent to a province. It lies on the northwestern coast of Java, borders the provinces of West Java and Banten, and faces the Java Sea to the north. Jakarta itself covers about 662 square kilometres (256 square miles), but the wider Jakarta metropolitan area—locally known as Jabodetabek—is among the largest urban agglomerations in the world by area. By population, Greater Jakarta is the most populous urban area in the world with a population of over 40 million. Jakarta is Indonesia's political, economic, and cultural centre and contains many national institutions, corporate headquarters, and the secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The area that is now Jakarta has been inhabited since at least the early centuries of the Common Era and was long associated with Sunda Kelapa, the port of the Sunda Kingdom. In 1527, the settlement was renamed Jayakarta after being captured by forces of the Demak Sultanate. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) seized the city in 1619 and rebuilt it as Batavia, which served as the centre of VOC power and subsequently of Dutch colonial rule in the Indonesian archipelago for more than three centuries. After the Japanese occupation during the Second World War and Indonesia's declaration of independence in 1945, the city took the name Jakarta and became the capital of the new republic.

Classified as an alpha world city, Jakarta is Indonesia's main financial and commercial centre and a leading node in the country's economy and regional trade. Its economy is concentrated in finance, trade, business services, media, and international diplomacy. Rapid urbanisation since the mid-20th century has turned the city into a vast metropolitan region, drawing migrants from across the Indonesian archipelago and making it the country's most populous city and one of the region's largest urban economies.

Jakarta is highly diverse and has no single dominant ethnic group. Its population includes large communities of Javanese, Betawi, Sundanese, Chinese Indonesians, and migrants from many other parts of Indonesia. Indonesian is the official language and the main language of public life, while Betawi culture grew out of the mixing of local, Chinese, Indian, Arab, and European influences during the colonial period. Jakarta has persistent urban problems, including traffic congestion, air pollution, flooding, and land subsidence, which helped prompt the national government's decision to relocate Indonesia's future capital to Nusantara in East Kalimantan. (Full article...)