Bandung

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Bandung is also the name of a Malaysian drink.

Image:Bandung view from the peak.jpg Bandung (formerly spelled: Bandoeng) is the provincial capital of West Java, Indonesia. Located on a highland plateau 768 meters above sea level, at Template:Coor dm, the city has a population of around 2.2 million. Bandung Regency is the suburban area surrounding the city of Bandung. It became famous as the venue for the 1955 first conference of Non-aligned nations.

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History

In 1488, the area now named Bandung was the capital of the Kingdom of Pajajaran. During colonial times, the government of the Dutch East Indies built a supply road connecting Batavia (now Jakarta), Bogor, Cianjur, Bandung, Sumedang and Cirebon. This event was very important for the growth of Bandung. In the 1930s the Dutch East Indies government planned for Bandung to become the capital of the Dutch East Indies due to its location, however World War II disrupted these plans. They intended at that time to limit the population of Bandung to about 350,000. Today, the sprawling city is estimated to have more than 2 million inhabitants.

It is not known exactly when the city of Bandung was built. However, contrary to the beliefs of some the city was not originally built by the orders of Daendels, the Dutch East Indies Governor General , but by the orders of Bupati R.A. Wiranatakusumah II. The Dutch colonial powers built wide tree-lined boulevards, villas, gardens, and fountains, earning Bandung the nickname of "Parijs van Java", the Paris of Java, in the early 20th century. It was also known by colonialists as "flower city". However, in more recent times the city's parks have been neglected. Many of these structures survive to today, and can be seen along the road leading to the Dago area north of the city.

After Indonesian independence, Bandung was named as the provincial capital of West Java (Jawa Barat). Bandung was the site of the Bandung Conference which met April 18-April 24, 1955 with the aim of promoting economic and cultural cooperation among the African and Asian countries, and to counter the threat of colonialism or neocolonialism by the United States, the Soviet Union, or other imperialistic nations. In May 2005 the 50th anniversary of the Asian Africa Conference, was celebrated with many representatives from overseas countries attending. Prior to the 2005 celebrations, great efforts were by the city administration to "re-beautify" the city, with many of the parks and small gardens being replanted and upgraded to near their former glory, and roads and pavements resurfaced and repaired. Just in time for the conference, the jalan tol (motorway/highway) between Jakarta and Bandung was completed which has cut the travel time between the two cities by at least one hour. As a result Bandung, at weekends and holidays, is packed with day trippers from Jakarta wishing to escape the heat and pollution of Jakarta to Bandung's cooler and pleasant climate.

Bandung in recent years has become a "mecca" for shoppers with its numerous factory outlets and stock centres, particularly along Jalan Juanda, Dago, in the northern part of the city.

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Motto

The motto of Bandung is "Gemah Ripah Wibawa Mukti" as shown in the coat-of-arms of Bandung. It means "rich soil prosperous people".

The mayor of Bandung, Dada Rosada, has endowed a new motto "Bermartabat", which is an acronym from Bersih (clean), Makmur (prosperous), Taat (obedient, in religious sense), Bersahabat (friendly). The motto it self literaly translated as "Dignified"

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Government

The City of Bandung is divided into 26 subdistricts (kecamatan): Sukasari, Cidadap, Coblong, Cibeunying Kaler, Cibeunying Kidul, Sukajadi, Cicendo, Andir, Bandung Kulon, Babakan Ciparay, Astana Anyar, Bojongloa Kaler, Bojongloa Kidul, Bandung Kidul, Regol, Lengkong, Sumur Bandung, Bandung Wetan, Kiara Condong, Batununggal, Cicadas, Margacinta, Rancasari, Arcamanik, Ujungberung, and Cibiru.

The list of Bandung's head of city (Wali kota):

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Landmarks

Bandung is known for its large number of old buildings in Dutch architecture:

Other landmarks:

  • Mesjid Agung Bandung (the great mosque of Bandung), located in the city square (alun-alun)
  • Babakan Siliwangi
  • The 2.8 Km Pasupati bridge, linking East and West of Bandung.
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Geography

Bandung is bookmarked by several hilly, mountainous parts. The Lembang highlands to the north is a popular weekend getaway area, offering even cooler climates and beautiful views of the surrounding plateau. Its popularity ensures its continuing development, with new hotels, resorts and restaurants built and continuing the urban expansion further north. Traditionally, this area is also supported by agriculture in form of flower and vegetable plantations, and several tea plantations further north.

The area surrounding Bandung is volcanic, and tourist attractions such as Maribaya and Tangkuban Perahu are only a short trip away. Maribaya offers mountainous terrain and its hot, sulfur springs are a popular destination year-long.

Tangkuban Perahu is a volcano with three craters into which areas tourists can walk through. These three craters are: Kawah Ratu ("Queen Crater"), Kawah Domas ("Domas Crater"), and Kawah Upas ("Upas Crater"). Tourists can go down into the Domas Crater where exist many hot geysers in which they can boil eggs.

The recent expansion of the city borders added the southern lowlands to the city of Bandung, mostly consisting of industrialized areas and recently housing developments. The garment industry is dominant among the manufacturing companies, and attracts many migrants from the countryside to relocate to Bandung.

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Culture

The West Java people are called the Sunda, endowed with language and traditions unique to that of the rest of Java. The Sunda language has 3 distinct hierarchies, starting from the lowly "Sunda kasar" or "harsh Sundanese", middle Sundanese, and "Sunda lemes" or "soft Sundanese". Many Sundanese words have been adopted into Indonesian, although many of its contributions consist of swear wods. The old Hindu kingdom in the region is called Pajajaran, and West Java used to be called Parahyangan, meaning "Land of the Gods". In its later history, the region fell under influence of the Central Java kingdoms, reflected in high Sundanese having borrowed much of its vocabulary and grammar from high Javanese.

In Indonesia, the Sundanese are known to be more easygoing and less formal in their temperament than their distant relatives from Central Java and East Java. This is reflected in the grammar of the Sundanese language, which has many forms allowing for meaningless light banter. Interestingly, Sundanese has contributed many swear words to the Indonesian language spoken in Jakarta.

The most popular traditional musical instrument, the "angklung", is made of parallel bamboo tubes tuned to specific frequencies with a hammer and is shaken to produce certain notes. Music is performed by a choir of angklung players, each of whom are responsible for sounding certain notes. Its melody is only slightly different from that of Central Java's gamelan ensembles.

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Transportation

The primary means of transportation is public transportation vans (in local language: angkot, or angkutan kota, "city transportation") which serve certain routes and are run by private operators. There is not a particularly large number of taxis, and they are not popular since they are quite expensive in comparison, and those who could afford them would prefer and already have private transport. Buses, operated by the city or by private operators, serve transportation routes on the larger roads and relatively long routes.

Unlike Jakarta, Bandung usually reaches its peak traffic during the weekends. This happens because many tourists, mainly from Jakarta, see Bandung as their nearest destination for short holidays. Often up to half of the city is paralyzed by heavy traffic during long weekends. Weekdays offer the opportunity to visit Bandung without the hassle of overcrowding and traffic jams.

A railroad track connects Bandung to Jakarta and Cianjur to the west, and Tasikmalaya and Cilacap to the east. It is also the major means of transportation for people in neighboring areas of Cimahi, Padalarang, Rancaekek and Cileunyi who need to commute to Bandung everyday.

The primary airport of Bandung is Husein Sastranegara, serving flights to other major cities in Indonesia and to international destinations such as Singapore and, more recently, Kuala Lumpur. It is located in the western part of the town near the Dirgantara aerospace complex.

The Bridge of Pasupati is now open for public use. It connects the eastern and northern parts of Bandung through the valley of Cikapundung. It is 2.8 km long and 30 to 60 metres wide. After much delay, its construction finally completed in June 2005.

The Toll road of Padaleunyi connects Padalarang, Cimahi, southern part of Bandung and Cileunyi. The Cipularang tollroad that connects Padalarang and Purwakarta was completed in May 2005. The two tollroads are now considered as one, the Purbaleunyi tollroad. Efforts have been made by the government to change all instances of "Padaleunyi" on road signs into "Purbaleunyi". The Pasupati bridge will become a tollway in the future. A Cileunyi-Sumedang tollroad is also being considered.

For short distances, or for leisure, there are horse carriages (called: Andong, or Delman), very attractively decorated with colorful horse accessories and local prints, abundant around Gunung Batu Road. At full capacity, it can carry about six to eight persons, facing one another. Near ITB and the Bandung Zoo, there are numerous horses and Andongs, which are available for a ride at a relatively cheap price. There are also pedicabs, the driver at the back, pedalling, and the passenger in front (only carries about two persons, three at most). These are called becak, found in residential areas, to transfer residents from large roads to small roads not run by angkot. These becaks are also used around the various traditional markets (pasar), to carry heavy loads of vegetables, fruits, and other groceries. The becak can also be found in other cities of Indonesia, with little differences in form. The becak in Bandung almost always have roofs for the passengers on them, whereas in Yogyakarta most do not.

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Education

Many of Indonesia's major universities are located in Bandung, earning Bandung the name of 'city of education' or 'city of students'. The Institut Teknologi Bandung (English: Bandung Institute of Technology or Institue of Technology, Bandung) or ITB was established by the Dutch colonial administration at the turn of the 20th century, and was famous for being the alma mater of Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia and outspoken figure who initiated Bandung Conference.

Like in other Indonesian cities, Bandung has several state-funded and administered junior high and high schools, called State Junior High Schools (SMPN) and State High Schools (SMAN), respectively. Privately administered schools have also been around for many years, and the oldest Roman Catholic high school is the St. Aloysius High School.

Bandung is also the place of the research institute for social complexity sciences, Bandung Fe Institute, and visual arts, at Sekolah Tinggi Seni Rupa dan Desain Indonesia or STISI.

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Tourism and Economy

Image:Bandung market.JPG The Dago area near the center of the city offers many restaurants, shops, shopping centers and entertainment centers. The weekend nights see Dago being transformed into a block party area with the local radio stations deploying their special vans to provide live coverage, especially in the lower parts near Jalan Merdeka.

Bandung and its surrounding areas have many of tourist attractions:

For the locals, a quick escape up north to the Lembang area offers a relief from the increasing heat and pollution in the city centers. Many high-end housing complexes have been developed in the past 2 decades, causing further overpopulation problems in this side of the city. As a side effect, the Boscha observatory in Lembang is not nearly as effective as it used to be due to severe light pollution from the residents.

Bandung is also known for its wealth of clothing outlets, attacting a huge number of visitors from surrounding cities (particularly from Jakarta), especially during weekends and holidays:

  • Denim clothing industry outlets along the street of Cihampelas.
  • Bandung has earned the nickname "Kota Wisata Belanja" - Shopping Tourist City - because of the many factory outlets which sell ex-export garment products.
  • Bandung is also known for its garment industry. Products that were made as export items that did not get exported are sold at cheaper price in outlets (in local speak: 'factory outlet') in Bandung, particularly along Jalan Ir. H. Juanda (Dago) and Jalan R.E. Martadinata (Riau).
  • There is also a flourishing shoe industry in Cibaduyut in southern Bandung.
  • There are also various distribution outlets and independent design labels that exist.

Bandung is also famous for its food; it is well-known for its many contributions to the culinary world such peuyeum, batagor, comro, and the bajigur drink. Peuyeum is made from fermented sago. Batagor is an acronym for baso tahu goreng, literally translates to deep-fried fish/meatballs and tofu. Comro is an acronym for oncom di jero, which translates to oncom inside. Bajigur is a sweet traditional drink served warm, and is popular in the evenings as Bandung's climate is more temperate than the rest of Indonesia. Another popular food item is martabak, which comes in 2 varieties, sweet and savoury. The sweet one is filled with your choice of peanut, chocolate, cheese, condensed milk or mixed. The savoury one has eggs and minced beef.

Bandung attracts a lot of visitors from Jakarta on weekends, most of the time resulting in severe traffic jams. Most notable is when all Jakarta was being put on holiday because of the APEC Convention, traffic in Bandung came into halt for more than 8 hours. With the new Purbaleunyi tollway and Pasupati bridge, it would take approximately 2 hours to get from Jakarta to the shopping district in Dago, assuming fair traffic conditions. Before, it could take up to 5 hours for the same journey, on weekends. Bandung became a location of interest to European avant-garde artists in 2004, when artist Justin McKeown began walking the distance between his house in Ballymena (Northern Ireland) and Bandung as part of an ongoing work of Spart.

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Sports

Bandung is the home town of the soccer team Persib Bandung. Another soccer team Persikab Bandung is actually based in neighboring city of Cimahi, which is part of Kabupaten Bandung. There are also less prominent soccer teams such as Bandung Raya or lately known as Mastrans Bandung Raya but now it's no more, because of lack of funding. The most popular stadium is Stadion Siliwangi.

Other popular sports in Bandung include badminton and basketball.

The roads leading up to the Lembang and Dago areas are popular routes for cycling during the weekends. Bandung itself used to have cycling races in the 1970s, and produced several notable cyclists during that era. More recently, Bandung was visited by the revived Tour d'Indonesia.

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Sister cities

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External links

de:Bandung gl:Bandung id:Kota Bandung ja:バンドン lt:Bandungas ms:Bandung nl:Bandung no:Bandung pl:Bandung pt:Bandung su:Bandung fi:Bandung zh:万隆

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