T

he neighboring municipality hosts areas that share similar names to the ones in Jakarta, a source of confusion for taxi drivers.

Betawi historian JJ Rizal says that the similarities derives from the cultural influence of the Betawi people, who have the tendency to name an area with plant names or something related to a waterway.

Below are five of those areas:

Mampang

Mampang is a subdistrict in Pancoran Mas district, home to 26,312 people. Although it'€™s currently deemed a quiet area with a small population, the growth of residential areas in the 110-hectare area will soon make it densely populated just like its sister neighborhood in Jakarta.

Its name derives from Jalu Mampang (Monstera pertusa Auct), a plant from the arum family, which no longer exists in the area.

Kemang

It refers to an area in Sukatani, Cimanggis district, which has recently a rising number of housing complexes.

Kemang, is another name for the Binjai tree (Mangifera caesia), an endemic along the coast of Sumatra and Kalimantan also seen on the western tip of Java, including Bogor.

Pancoran Mas

Pancoran Mas means golden shower in Betawi. Similar to Pancoran in East Jakarta, the name Pancoran Mas was given because the area has a reservoir called Setu Pulo, as it was located in Pulo village, Rangkepan Jaya subdistrict.

Like its twin sister in Jakarta, Pancoran Mas is a densely populated district in Depok with at least 240,000 people in its 1.9 million-hectare area.

Grogol

Historian and Betawi culture expert JJ Rizal said the name grogol was that of an animal breeding area. The word Grogol, in Sundanese, means an animal trap made of a wooden spear planted in the ground to catch wild animals.

According to a native of Grogol district, Sarmin, the area was once inhabited by many wild beasts, so villagers installed Grogol to catch them.

Sarmin said the forest was also used by criminals as a hiding place. As a result, the name was once changed to Grogol Dekil (Dirty Grogol).

'€œThe natives were upset with the name, so people now call it only Grogol,'€ he said.

Pramuka

Pramuka (scout) is the name of a road and the area along it in Mampang subdistrict in Pancoran Mas. The origin of the street name, similar to that of the main road in East Jakarta, remains unknown.

The leader of National Scout'€™s district unit, Sariyo Sabani, said he did not know why the name of street was Pramuka as it had nothing to do with the center of national scout activity in Cibubur, Depok.

The name is also not popular as public minivan drivers usually call the area around Jl. Pramuka a military district command (Kodim). '€” JP