The largest city in Indonesia is Jakarta, the capital, with roughly 10.6 million residents in the city proper, followed by Surabaya (2.9 million), Bandung (2.5 million), Medan (2.4 million) and Bekasi (2.4 million). Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, home to around 273 million people spread across thousands of islands, and its biggest cities concentrate much of that population on the island of Java.
The Ten Largest Indonesian Cities
Ranked by city-proper population, the ten largest cities in Indonesia are:
- Jakarta — about 10.6 million (capital and largest city)
- Surabaya — about 2.9 million (second largest, East Java)
- Bandung — about 2.5 million (West Java highlands)
- Medan — about 2.4 million (largest city on Sumatra)
- Bekasi — about 2.4 million (Greater Jakarta satellite)
- Tangerang — about 2.1 million (Greater Jakarta satellite)
- Depok — about 1.9 million (Greater Jakarta satellite)
- Semarang — about 1.7 million (Central Java port)
- Palembang — about 1.6 million (southern Sumatra)
- Makassar — about 1.5 million (largest city on Sulawesi)
Notably, three of the ten — Bekasi, Tangerang and Depok — are satellite cities ringing the capital. Together with Jakarta they form a vast metropolitan region known as Jabodetabek, one of the most populous urban agglomerations on Earth.
Jakarta: A Megacity Far Ahead of the Rest
Jakarta dwarfs every other Indonesian city. With about 10.6 million people inside its administrative boundaries, it is more than three times the size of second-place Surabaya. Counting the surrounding Jabodetabek conurbation, the greater Jakarta region holds well over 30 million people, rivalling Tokyo and Delhi as one of the world's largest metro areas. The city sits on the northwest coast of Java at the mouth of the Ciliwung River and serves as Indonesia's financial, political and cultural heart, generating a disproportionate share of national GDP. Rapid growth has brought serious challenges, including chronic traffic congestion, flooding and land subsidence, with parts of northern Jakarta sinking by several centimetres each year.
Java Dominates, but the Big Cities Span the Archipelago
Java is the most populous island in the world, and it is no surprise that most of Indonesia's largest cities sit there: Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Bekasi, Tangerang, Depok and Semarang are all Javanese. Yet the largest-city list also reaches across the archipelago. Medan and Palembang anchor the western island of Sumatra, while Makassar is the principal gateway to eastern Indonesia on the island of Sulawesi. This spread reflects the country's extraordinary geography — more than 17,000 islands stretching over 5,000 kilometres from west to east, with major urban centres acting as regional hubs for trade, administration and transport.
A New Capital: Nusantara
One of the most significant developments in Indonesian urban geography is the planned relocation of the capital. To relieve pressure on overcrowded, sinking Jakarta, the government is building a brand-new capital called Nusantara on the island of Borneo (Kalimantan), in East Kalimantan province. Government functions are gradually shifting there, though Jakarta is expected to remain the country's commercial and economic centre for decades. The move aims to spread development more evenly beyond Java and reduce the environmental strain on the existing capital region.
What the Largest Cities Are Known For
Each of Indonesia's big cities has its own character:
- Surabaya is a major industrial port and gateway to eastern Java, nicknamed the "City of Heroes" for its role in the independence struggle.
- Bandung, set in cool volcanic highlands, is known for universities, textiles and colonial-era architecture.
- Medan is a multicultural commercial centre and the springboard to North Sumatra's plantations and Lake Toba.
- Semarang is a historic Central Java port with strong Chinese and Dutch heritage.
- Makassar has long been a seafaring and trading hub, famous for its maritime Bugis culture.
For more on the country's geography, history and culture, see our indonesia country guide.
Java Holds More People Than Any Island on Earth
Indonesia is spread across roughly 17,000 islands, but its population is not. Java, which covers under seven per cent of the national land area, holds more than half the country's people, somewhere around 150 million, making it the most populous island in the world by a wide margin.
Six of the ten largest cities are on Java. Volcanic soils made it exceptionally fertile, Dutch colonial administration concentrated infrastructure there, and the population advantage compounded over centuries.
The imbalance has been a policy problem since independence. The transmigration programme, running from the 1950s to the 1990s, moved millions of Javanese families to Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua, and its legacy includes both the growth of cities such as Palembang and Medan and a set of enduring local tensions.
The Capital Is Sinking and Is Being Replaced
Jakarta is subsiding faster than almost any large city in the world. Parts of North Jakarta have dropped several metres over recent decades, driven by groundwater extraction from beneath the city, and roughly forty per cent of the metropolitan area now sits below sea level.
Flooding is routine and severe, seawalls have been raised repeatedly, and a giant coastal defence has been proposed and repeatedly revised. The underlying cause is that piped water never reached much of the city, so residents and businesses drilled their own wells.
In 2019 the government announced it would move the capital altogether, to a new city called Nusantara being built in East Kalimantan on Borneo. The first phase was inaugurated in 2024, though the full transfer of government remains years away and the funding model has shifted several times.
Jabodetabek Is One of the World's Largest Urban Areas
Jakarta's own figure of around ten million describes only the special capital region. The surrounding conurbation, known by the acronym Jabodetabek for Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, holds above thirty million and ranks among the two or three largest metropolitan areas on the planet.
Bekasi, Depok, Tangerang and South Tangerang all appear separately in national city rankings and are all functionally suburbs. Bogor, in the hills to the south, was the Dutch administrative retreat and is among the rainiest cities in the world, with thunderstorms on the majority of days in the year.
A mass rapid transit line finally opened in Jakarta in 2019, decades later than in comparable Asian capitals, and the commuter rail network carries the bulk of the daily movement into the centre.
Surabaya, Medan and the Regional Capitals
Surabaya in East Java is the second city and the country's main naval base and eastern port. Its name is usually glossed as shark and crocodile, the two animals on its coat of arms, and the battle fought there in November 1945 against returning colonial forces is commemorated nationally as Heroes' Day.
Medan, in North Sumatra, grew on tobacco and rubber plantations and has a distinctly different character, with substantial Chinese, Tamil and Batak communities. Makassar in Sulawesi was the great spice-trade port of the eastern archipelago and remains the gateway to Indonesia's east.
Bandung, in the Javanese highlands, was planned by the Dutch as a cool-climate administrative city and holds a large concentration of art deco architecture, along with the country's leading technology university.
Living on the Ring of Fire
Indonesia has more active volcanoes than any other country, around 130, and sits where several tectonic plates meet. The cities on this list are built in that setting rather than away from it, because the volcanic soil is what made the land worth farming.
Yogyakarta lies directly beneath Merapi, among the most active volcanoes in the world, which erupts every few years and required large evacuations in 2010. The city is also the cultural heart of Java, still ruled by a sultan who serves as the region's governor, and the temples of Borobudur and Prambanan stand nearby.
The Indian Ocean earthquake of December 2004 originated off Sumatra and the tsunami that followed killed more than 160,000 people in Aceh alone, most of them in and around Banda Aceh. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in Indonesian history.
Common Questions About Indonesian Cities
What is the largest city in Indonesia?
Jakarta is the largest city in Indonesia, with about 10.6 million people in the city proper and over 30 million in its surrounding metropolitan area. It is also the national capital.
What is the second largest city in Indonesia?
Surabaya, located in East Java, is the second largest city with roughly 2.9 million residents. It is a leading industrial port and trade centre for the eastern half of Java.
Are all of Indonesia's biggest cities on Java?
Most are, but not all. Seven of the ten largest cities sit on Java, while Medan and Palembang are on Sumatra and Makassar is on Sulawesi, reflecting Indonesia's spread across thousands of islands.
Is Jakarta still the capital of Indonesia?
Yes, for now. Indonesia is building a new capital called Nusantara on Borneo and gradually transferring government functions there, but Jakarta remains the largest city and the country's economic centre.
Is Indonesia really moving its capital?
Yes. Nusantara, in East Kalimantan on Borneo, was legislated in 2022 and partially inaugurated in 2024. Jakarta is sinking and severely congested, and the move is also intended to shift development away from Java. The transfer is phased and far from complete.