Surabaya is the capital city of the Indonesian province of East Java and the second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. Located on the northeastern corner of Java island, on the Madura Strait, it is one of the earliest port cities in Southeast Asia. According to the National Development Planning Agency, Surabaya is one of the four main central cities of Indonesia, alongside Jakarta, Medan, and Makassar. The city had a population of 2,874,314 within its city limits at the 2020 census. With 3,009,286 people living in the city as of mid 2023 and over 10 million in the extended Surabaya metropolitan area, according to the latest official estimate, Surabaya was the second-largest metropolitan area in Indonesia. Surabaya metropolitan is also ASEAN's 7th largest economy ahead of Hanoi.
Medan is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra. The nearby Strait of Malacca, Port of Belawan, and Kualanamu International Airport make Medan a regional hub and multicultural metropolis, acting as a financial centre for Sumatra and a gateway to the western part of Indonesia. About 60% of the economy in North Sumatra is backed by trading, agriculture, and processing industries, including exports from its 4 million acres of palm oil plantations. The National Development Planning Agency listed Medan as one of the four main central cities in Indonesia, alongside Jakarta, Surabaya, and Makassar.
The Bogor Palace is one of six presidential palaces of Indonesia, it is located in the city of Bogor, West Java. The palace is noted for its distinctive architectural and historical features, as well as the adjoining botanical gardens. Istana Bogor was opened to the public in 1968 to public tour groups, with the permission of the acting president of Indonesia, Suharto. The gardens of the palace covers an area of 284,000 square metres.
Bank Indonesia (BI) is the central bank of the Republic of Indonesia. It replaced in 1953 the Bank of Java, which had been created in 1828 to serve the financial needs of the Dutch East Indies.
Eduard Cuypers was a Dutch architect. He worked in Amsterdam and the Dutch East Indies.
Herman Thomas Karsten was a Dutch engineer who gave major contributions to architecture and town planning in Indonesia during Dutch colonial rule. Most significantly he integrated the practice of colonial urban environment with native elements; a radical approach to spatial planning for Indonesia at the time. He introduced a neighborhood plan for all ethnic groups in Semarang, built public markets in Yogyakarta and Surakarta, and a city square in the capital Batavia. Between 1915 and 1941 he was given responsibility for planning 12 out of 19 municipalities in Java, 3 out of 9 towns in Sumatra and a town in Kalimantan. He received official recognition from both the government through his appointment to the colony's major Town Planning Committee and by the academic community with his appointment to the position of Lecturer for Town Planning at the School of Engineering at Bandung. He died in an internment camp near Bandung in 1945 during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies.
Jakarta is Indonesia's capital and largest city. Located on an estuary of the Ciliwung River, on the northwestern part of Java, the area has long sustained human settlement. Historical evidence from Jakarta dates back to the 4th century CE, when it was a Hindu settlement and port. The city has been sequentially claimed by the Indianized kingdom of Tarumanegara, the Hindu Kingdom of Sunda, the Muslim Sultanate of Banten, and by Dutch, Japanese and Indonesian administrations. The Dutch East Indies built up the area before it was taken during World War II by the Empire of Japan and finally became independent as part of Indonesia.
Merdeka Square is a large square located in the center of Jakarta, Indonesia. Merdeka is the Indonesian word for freedom or independence. Measuring approximately one square kilometer in area, if the surrounding fields within the Merdeka Square are included, it is considered one of the largest squares in the world. At 75 hectares, it is over five times the size of Tiananmen Square, and 12 times the size of Place de la Concorde.
Dutch colonial architecture refers to the various style of Dutch architecture built across the Dutch Empire. Though most of the buildings were designed by Dutch architects and dictated by Western architectural styles, even the most ardent style-purists among architects could not escape the forces of context and culture. Dutch colonial architecture often is a result of climatological adaptations or the use of local building materials - and more importantly, the rich and diverse cultural contexts. In this hybridity lies the quality of these buildings. Architecture shows that the strict racial taxonomy of a colonial system could not be maintained.
Large-scale Japanese migration to Indonesia dates back to the late 19th century, though there was limited trade contact between Japan and Indonesia as early as the 17th century. As of October 2009, there were about 11,263 Japanese expatriates in Indonesia. At the same time, there are also identifiable populations of descendants of early migrants, who may be referred to as Nikkei Indonesians or Indonesian Nikkei.
Armenians first traveled to Java towards the end of the 18th century. They established several well-known commercial houses engaged in trade with overseas markets.
The colonial architecture of Indonesia refers to the buildings that were created across Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period, during that time, this region was known as the Dutch East Indies. These types of colonial era structures are more prevalent in Java and Sumatra, as those islands were considered more economically significant during the Dutch imperial period. As a result of this, there is a large number of well preserved colonial era buildings that are still densely concentrated within Indonesian cities in Java and Sumatra to this day.
Frans Johan Louwrens Ghijsels was a Dutch architect and urban planner who worked in the Netherlands and the Dutch Indies. Ghijsels was the founder of AIA, the biggest architecture consultant in the Dutch Indies. He was one of the instrumental architects in developing a modern style characteristic of the Dutch Indies.
Grand Mosque of Medan or Masjid Raya Al-Mashun is a mosque located in Medan, Indonesia. The mosque was built in the year 1906 and completed in 1909. In beginning of its establishment, the mosque was a part of the Maimun palace complex. Its architectural style combines Middle Eastern, Indian and Spanish elements. The mosque has an octagonal shape and has wings to the south, east, north and west.
The Bank of Java was a note-issuing bank in the Dutch East Indies, founded in 1828, and nationalized in 1951 by the government of Indonesia to become the newly independent country’s central bank, later renamed Bank Indonesia. For more than a century, the Bank of Java was the central institution of the Dutch East Indies’ financial system, alongside the “big three” commercial banks. It was both a note-issuing bank and a commercial bank.
Indies Empire style is an architectural style that flourished in the colonial Dutch East Indies between the middle of the 18th century and the end of the 19th century. The style is an imitation of the neoclassical Empire Style which was popular in mid-19th-century France. Conformed to the tropical setting of Indonesia, the style became known in the Dutch East Indies as the Indies Empire style.
Hotel der Nederlanden was a historic hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia. Hotel der Nederlanden was one of the three grand hotels in Batavia during the last period of the colonial rule, the other being Hotel des Indes and the Grand Hotel Java. The hotel had operated for more than a century, after which it was demolished in 1969 and was replaced with the Bina Graha presidential office.
Johannes Martinus (Han) Groenewegen was a Dutch architect who was active in the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies, and subsequently, Indonesia from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Willem Jan Pieter van der Does was a Dutch painter, art illustrator, draftsman, and water-colorist associated with the East Indies impressionist movement.
