Once saddled with a reputation as a poverty-ridden hell hole, Jakarta mutated into a metropolis with all the outward appearance of an Asian boom town in not much more than a decade. It took only a week of rioting in May 1998 to reduce some of this modern façade to a burnt out shell. Shopping malls, offices, banks and businesses owned by ethnic Chinese and the ruling Soeharto family took the brunt of the rioters' anger. Jakarta remains very much at the centre of political events re-shaping Indonesia, and how quickly the city recovers from the riots and the political and economic turmoil remains to be seen.

That said, Jakarta is the most expensive city in Indonesia, the most polluted and the most congested. But if you can withstand this onslaught and afford to indulge in its charms, then it is also one of the region's most exciting metropolises. Consider Jakarta the 'big durian' - the foul-smelling exotic fruit that some can't stomach and others can't resist.
Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta international airport is 35km (21mi) west of the city centre, and there are bus stations around the outskirts of town.

Population: 9 million
Area: 661 sq km (258 sq mi)
Country: Indonesia
Time Zone: GMT/UTC +7 hours
Telephone Area Code: +62 21

Orientation
Jakarta, on the island of Java in Indonesia, sprawls over 25km (15mi) from the docks to the suburbs of South Jakarta. The city centre fans out from around Merdeka Square, a grand, barren field, which contains the central gold-tipped landmark of the National Monument (Monas). Jakarta doesn't really have a centre: rather there are a number of centres all separated by vast traffic jams, incredible pollution and heat. For most visitors, the area south of the monument holds most interest. Jl Thamrin is the main shopping and deluxe hotel thoroughfare, while just to the east is the main restaurant and cheap hotel area.

BATAVIA
Nearby, in Gang Mesjid 1, off JI. Pangeran Tubagus Angke, the small Mesjid Alanwar or Angke Mosque, dating from 1761, incorporates HinduBalinese architectural elements. From such milieux emerged the orang Betawi; the "Batavian," prototype of the modern Jakartan, whose dialect and customs came to set the tone of everyday life in the city. Even the Dutch adopted Betawi ways, donning the sarong for home wear and abandoning their stuffy imitations of Dutch town-houses for open bungalows with Javanese roofs and galleries. Much of late colonial residential architecture can be seen in the suburbs of Menteng and Kemayoran. Today, low dwellings with red clay roof tiles, not high-rise blocks or suburban compounds, still define Jakarta's architectural character.

After independence, the real transformation began. Old monuments were toppled; grander and uglier ones took their place. In-migration and incompetence frustrated the dreams of architects and ideologues; careless destruction and careless construction rendered Batavia almost unrecognizable within two decades.

Many of Jakarta's most famous landmarks date from this period: the Senayan Sports Complex, built with Russian money in 1962; the first of its luxury hotels, the Hotel Indonesia on JI. Thamrin; and a remarkable collection of crude, powerful statues in the "Heroes of Socialism" tradition. Many of the latter have attracted deflating nicknames: "Hot Hands Harry", "pizza man" and "mad waiter" for the Youth Statue at the south end of JI. Sudirman, who grimaces as he holds aloft what appears to be a flaming dish; "Hansel and Gretel" for the wholesome couple portrayed by the Statue of Welcome on JI. Thamrin, built for the 1962 Asian Games. Of the striking Irian Jaya Liberation Memorial ("the chainbreaker") on Lapangan Banteng, it used to be quipped in Sukarno's time, that the giant's cry was "Empty!" - inreference to the Department of Finance behind him.

Sukarno's ultimate monumental legacy was the National Monument or Monas, otherwise known as "Sukarno's last erection." Part Hindu lingga (phallic symbol), part marble hymn to progress, it rises 137 metres above the centre of Merdeka Square. Still Jakarta's greatest landmark, Monas offers superb panoramic views and has an interesting museum that depicts the current official version of Indonesian history in 48 dioramas.

Sukarno also bequeathed Jakarta a population that doubled every decade, a phone system which required businesses to employ special staff just to dial numbers over and over again, and a reputation as Southeast Asia's dirtiest, least organized, most dangerous capital. Under Suharto, Jakarta's governor Ali Sadikin set out to change the city's image. He repaired roads and bridges and built schools and hospitals, but also took cruel and much-criticized measures to eliminate the "eyesore" of street peddlers and becak from the central areas. A bloody police campaign against urban crime in 1983, repeated the theme of ruthless cleansing. However, Suharto's New Order did not bring an end to extravagant prestige projects. Mrs. Suharto's Taman Mini Indonesia Indah ("Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature"), a mammoth theme park in the south of the city, designed to provide a sanitized overview of all of the country's regional cultures, epitomizes the "showcase" mentality.

The biggest changes began with the Pacific war, when the invading Japanese inaugurated the city's present name. For more than three centuries the world had known it as Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies.

The Dutch city had been a commercial and military center, built around the site of a Muslim port, Jakarta or Jayakarta, on a natural harbor at the mouth of the Ciliwung River. Earlier still, the port had been an entrepot for the Sundanese Hindu kingdom of Pajajaran, but in 1527 it was captured by Muslims from Banten and Demak. Little more remains from pre-Dutch days than a single inscribed stone pillar in the National Museum, commemorating a Hindu-Portuguese treaty of 1522. However, today's picturesque Sunda Kelapa Harbor, with its magnificent sailing vessels, and the old nautical instruments on sale in the nearby Pasar Man Market, still recall some of the atmosphere of the old Asian trading world into which the Dutch intruded all those centuries ago.

Jayakarta was destroyed in 1619 by the VOC (Dutch United East India Company), under the ruthless leadership of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, its fourth governor-general. The small, fortified town built in its place corresponded with the present-day district of Kota, and though the walls themselves were mostly demolished in 1810, something of this first Batavia can still be seen. West of the harbor, VOC warehouses from 1652 now house the Bahari Museum, with Indonesian maritime exhibits; further south is a large, but dilapidated VOC wharf, once used for ship repair. Ruins of other VOC installations can also be seen offshore, on the inner islands of the Pulau Seribu (Thousand Islands) Aarchipelago, which is now a weekend beach retreat for wealthy Jakartans. The area of most complete preservation from VOC days, however, is Batavia Town Square, now called Taman Fatahillah. The square is domi nated by the City Hall (Stadhuis), which was built in 1719 and restored in 1973/74, and now houses the Historical Museum of Jakarta. This solid building, said to have been inspired by its counterpart in Amsterdam, sports horrific dungeons as well as opulent chambers; public tortures and executions were carried out in the square. The museum's collection includes fine furniture and VOC regalia. Also in Taman Fatahillah, are art and wayang museums, and a Portuguese cannon from Malacca called Si Jagur, said to make barren women fertile if they sit astride it. The canal and houses along JI. Kali Besar, and the restored Chicken Market Drawbridge at its north end, illustrate the doomed attempt to recreate a Dutch environment in this tropical place.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen's fort withstood attacks by huge Javanese armies in 1628 and 1629, but Coen himself, ominously, died of cholera during the second siege. For the next two centuries, Batavia's most feared enemy was not arms but disease. Apart from cholera, the city's stagnant canals bred another deadly threat, malaria. Batavia's pestilences soon earned it the grim epithet of "the Dutchman's grave." By the 1680s, many of the seaward areas of the lower town were practically uninhabitable. In the following century, many Dutch residents abandoned Kota for healthier areas further south which were gradually being cleared of bandits and wild beasts. Thus began a southwards drift of the city's center of gravity which has continued ever since. One beautiful, l8th-century country house is now the National Archives Building, halfway along J1. Gajah Mada on the west side. The Istana Negara (State Palace), north of the National Monument, is another. By the early 19th century, much government and social activity had shifted to the city's presentday, symbolic center around Merdeka Square (formerly the Koningsplein) and Lapangan Banteng (Waterlooplein),

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