Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia, a province-level Special Capital Region on the northwestern coast of Java where the Ciliwung River meets the Java Sea. The city proper covers about 662 square kilometres, and civil registration counted 11,010,514 residents in the first half of 2025; the United Nations estimates the wider urban area, known as Jabodetabek, at 41.9 million, making Greater Jakarta the most populous urban area in the world. Its defining trait today is that it is a capital with a planned end date: a 2022 law set out a move of the national capital to Nusantara on Borneo, though Jakarta keeps that role until a presidential decree makes the transfer. The city has been renamed and rebuilt several times, from the Sunda port of Kalapa to Jayakarta, Batavia and finally Jakarta, and it is easiest to follow era by era.
Kalapa, Pepper Port of the Sunda Kingdom (5th Century to 1527)
People lived on this coast long before any city. The Buni pottery culture occupied the coastal plains of northern and western Java from roughly 400 BC to AD 100, and possibly until about AD 500. The first written evidence is the Tugu inscription of the mid-fifth century, found near Tanjung Priok in today’s North Jakarta, which records King Purnawarman digging a waterway called the Gomati.
By the 10th century the Sunda Kingdom ruled western Java, and its harbour at Kalapa, or Sunda Kalapa, became one of its chief ports. The Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires, writing in the early 16th century, called it Sunda’s most important trading port, drawing ships from Sumatra, Malacca and elsewhere on Java. Under pressure from the Muslim sultanates of Cirebon and Demak, Sunda signed a treaty with Portugal on 21 August 1522 allowing a Portuguese fortress at Kalapa. It came too late.
Jayakarta Under Demak and Banten (1527 to 1619)
In 1527 Islamic forces captured Kalapa. Tradition credits Fatahillah with the conquest and with renaming the port Jayakarta, from Sanskrit roots meaning “victory” or “victorious deed”, though surviving records do not confirm that he gave the name, and sources differ over whether he or Sunan Gunung Jati led the attack. The town became a dependency of the Banten Sultanate, and European visitors wrote its name as Iacarta, Xacatra or Jacatra.
By the early 17th century Jayakarta sat on the front line of a commercial war between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the English East India Company, both seeking a base for the spice trade. The local ruler had struck a deal with the English that Banten did not approve, and that quarrel opened the door for the Dutch. Jan Pieterszoon Coen returned from the Moluccas with reinforcements on 28 May 1619 and razed Jayakarta two days later, burning the royal residence.
Batavia, the VOC’s Walled Canal City (1619 to 1800)
On the ruins the VOC built its Asian headquarters and named it Batavia, after the Batavi, a Germanic tribe the Dutch regarded as their ancestors. It was laid out as a walled town of canals at the mouth of the Ciliwung, and its civic heart was the square now called Fatahillah Square, first recorded around 1627 as a new marketplace. The city hall that faces it, completed in its present form in 1710, is today the Jakarta History Museum.
Batavia was never meant as a Dutch settler colony. Few Dutch families came, and in the 18th century more than 60 per cent of its inhabitants were slaves working for the company. From 1688 each indigenous ethnic group was made to live in its own village outside the walls. Chinese residents ran much of the trade, farming, crafts and building work, and many worked in the sugar mills of the surrounding Ommelanden. When sugar prices fell and repression grew, unrest in 1740 ended in catastrophe: between 9 and 22 October, Dutch soldiers and allied groups killed at least 10,000 ethnic Chinese. The survivors were moved in 1741 to a designated quarter south of the walls, the area now called Glodok. Meanwhile the canals silted up, and after the 1730s the old town grew so unhealthy that wealthy residents began to leave.
This forced mixing produced a new people. Early Batavia drew residents from across Asia and the archipelago, among them Chinese, Bandanese, South Indian Muslims, Malays, Balinese, Buginese and Ambonese. Everyday contact and intermarriage across these groups, with Islam as a shared bond, forged the Betawi identity. The Betawi are now regarded as Jakarta’s indigenous ethnic group, even though they formed inside the colonial city rather than before it.
Weltevreden and the Colonial Capital (1800 to 1942)
In the early 19th century the city shifted inland to Weltevreden, today’s Central Jakarta, a district of official buildings and large garden residences around the square the Dutch called Koningsplein. The old town became a commercial quarter, and the city pushed south to the garden suburb of Menteng, planned in the 1910s, and east to Meester Cornelis, now Jatinegara. By the end of the 19th century Batavia held 115,887 people, of whom 8,893 were Europeans, 26,817 Chinese and 77,700 indigenous islanders.
Growth then accelerated. Early-19th-century estimates had put Batavia behind Surabaya, but the 1920 census showed it clearly in front, with Surabaya, Semarang and Surakarta trailing well behind. The wider area of Batavia and its surroundings already counted 2.1 million people in 1905, including 93,000 Chinese, 14,000 Europeans and 2,800 Arabs, and new houses were packed so tightly between kampung settlements that overcrowding and poor sanitation followed; Java suffered an outbreak of plague in 1913.
The capital also became the birthplace of Indonesian nationalism. A law school opened in 1924, and in October 1928 a youth congress in Batavia raised the red-and-white flag, sang the anthem written by Wage Rudolf Supratman and began calling the city Jakarta. The colonial government banned the flag, the anthem and even the word “Indonesia”.
Jakarta Tokubetsu-shi and the Proclamation (1942 to 1950)
Dutch forces surrendered Batavia to Japan in March 1942, and the occupiers renamed it Jakarta, administering it as Jakaruta Tokubetsu-shi, the Jakarta Special Municipality. On 17 August 1945, days after Japan’s surrender, Indonesia’s independence was proclaimed in the city. What followed was a period of contested control among Indonesian, Japanese, British and Dutch authorities. As British forces consolidated their hold, the Republican government withdrew, and Yogyakarta served as capital from early 1946. Jakarta became the capital again only in 1950, when the federal United States of Indonesia gave way to the unitary republic.
Sukarno’s Monuments and Suharto’s Towers (1950 to 1998)
President Sukarno used Jakarta as a stage for nation-building. In preparation for the 1962 Asian Games the city gained the Hotel Indonesia, Sarinah, the Senayan sports complex and the Thamrin–Sudirman axis. The National Monument, a 132-metre obelisk crowned by a gold-leaf flame, was begun in 1961 on the old Koningsplein, now Merdeka Square, and opened to the public in 1975. Jakarta gained its status as a Special Capital Region in 1961, confirmed by law in 1964, and its five administrative cities were created in 1966. The population was being remade at the same time: in 1961 only 51 per cent of residents had been born in Jakarta, while 46.7 per cent came from other provinces.
After the violence of 1965–66 brought General Suharto to power, Governor Ali Sadikin (1966–77) expanded the Kampung Improvement Program to bring basic services to dense neighbourhoods, even as modernisation displaced others. From the 1980s deregulation and foreign investment raised towers along Thamrin–Sudirman; our ranking of the tallest buildings in Jakarta picks up that skyline story. The Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 brought student protests and riots to the capital, and Suharto resigned on 21 May 1998.
Reformasi, Sinking Ground and the Nusantara Handover (1998 to Today)
Decentralisation reshaped the city government, and in 2007 residents elected their governor directly for the first time. Transport caught up slowly. Transjakarta, the first bus rapid transit system in Southeast Asia, began on 15 January 2004 and now claims the world’s longest BRT network at 251.2 kilometres; the first MRT line, from Lebak Bulus to Bundaran HI, opened on 24 March 2019. The metropolitan area kept swelling.
The ground itself is the deeper problem. Thirteen rivers cross an alluvial plain that was once swamp, and groundwater extraction and the weight of buildings make northern Jakarta subside, worsening floods driven by rain, tides and clogged drains. Green open space covered only about 5.18 per cent of the province in 2023, far below the 30 per cent minimum in national planning law. In April 2019 the government announced a ten-year plan to move all government offices to a new capital, and in August President Joko Widodo toured candidate sites in Kalimantan; the new city in East Kalimantan was named Nusantara in January 2022, to be built in five phases running to 2045, the centenary of independence. Indonesia celebrated Independence Day there for the first time on 17 August 2024. Under Jakarta’s 2024 special-region law, the city remains the capital until the presidential decree is signed.
Whenever that decree comes, Jakarta already holds many national institutions and corporate headquarters, the ASEAN secretariat and the port of Tanjung Priok, Indonesia’s largest and busiest harbour. To see where both the old and new capitals sit within the archipelago, read our overview of Indonesia’s geography, and for the capitals of each province, our list of Indonesian province capitals.
Quick Facts About Jakarta
- Country: Indonesia
- Continent: Asia (Southeast Asia)
- Country population: approximately 287.9 million
- Capital city status: Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia, the seat of national government, and the location of foreign embassies, parliament, and the head of state's official residence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the capital of Indonesia?
The capital of Indonesia is Jakarta. Jakarta is the seat of national government, hosts most foreign embassies and consulates, and is typically where the head of state and parliament are located.
What continent is Jakarta in?
Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is located in Asia, in the Southeast Asia region. As Indonesia's capital, Jakarta serves as the country's primary connection to the broader Asian political, economic, and cultural sphere.
Why is Jakarta the capital of Indonesia?
Jakarta was chosen as the capital of Indonesia for reasons that typically combine geography, history, and politics. Capital city selections often reflect a desire for centrality (being accessible from across the country), historical importance (being a longstanding seat of government or culture), or neutrality (being acceptable to multiple regions or ethnic groups within the country). The specific reasons for Jakarta's designation are detailed in the city's history above.
What is Jakarta known for?
As the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta is best known for housing the country's central government institutions — parliament, presidential or royal residences, supreme court, and key ministries. It is also typically a major cultural and economic center within Indonesia, hosting national museums, embassies, and signature monuments. The introduction and history sections above provide detailed coverage of the city's specific notable institutions and landmarks.
Related Pages
- Indonesia Country Guide — full geography, climate, economy, and culture overview
- Flag of Indonesia — meaning, history, and design of Indonesia's national flag