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rimandani and her two siblings strolled through Semarang Kota Lama in Central Java, the city’s own old town filled with historical buildings from the early 19th century Dutch colonial period.

With their mobile phone cameras, the siblings spent the day taking pictures of themselves with old buildings in the background.

“The area is getting more beautiful. There are many old buildings renovated and they look so beautiful. It’s different from what I saw three years ago,” Primandani said.

Hailing from Yogyakarta, the three siblings visited Semarang for a short holiday. They visited several tourist attractions in Central Java’s provincial capital. But Kota Lama was high up on their trip itinerary. They were drawn to the colonial buildings after seeing photos of them shared on social media outlets like Instagram. Kota Lama also offers various local dishes for visitors.

Kota Lama is an area that has everything in it. It comes with various facilities including offices, houses, a hospital and companies. It is also renowned as a tropical version of the Netherlands, rich in European architectural styles.

In an effort to boost tourism as well as preserve the historical buildings, the Semarang administration has proposed to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that the old town district be classified as a world cultural heritage site.

Semarang Deputy Mayor Hevearita Gunaryanti Rahayu said she went to the UNESCO office in Paris, France, recently to make sure that information about Kota Lama was on a temporary list of world cultural heritage sites.

“But it will last only until 2019,” Hevearita, who also chairs the Old Town Management Agency (BP2KL), said.

She said many steps had to be taken and a lot of documents had to be prepared to persuade UNESCO to acknowledge Kota Lama as a site worthy of the esteemed UNESCO title.

The revitalization of Kota Lama would entail preserving the originality of the existing buildings in the area without erasing their historical value. She expressed the hope that by 2020, the area will be declared a world cultural heritage site.

She said Rp 66 billion (US$5 million) was needed to revitalize the site, of which Rp 40 billion would come from the state budget and Rp 5 billion from the Central Java provincial budget.

The revitalization process will also cover the surrounding areas including the nearby Chinatown district, Hevearita added.

Tjahjono Rahardjo, a member of BP2KL, said the term old town was used for international communications purposes, including with UNESCO. “We use the term of old town, or Vielle Ville, because UNESCO’s working languages are English and French,” he said.

In total, the area has 245 buildings, of which 177 are privately owned. The other 68 buildings belong to either private or state-owned companies.

Kota Lama, which used to be a business and trading center from the early 19th century to the early 20th century, now displays old buildings bearing European architectural styles. It was abandoned at the end of the 20th century and many of the old buildings were damaged or even collapsed.

In the early 21st Century, the area was slowly revived after the city administration began to see it as a potential tourist attraction.

The revitalization of old buildings helps preserve the original beauty of the buildings, such as Blenduk Church, Marba, Marabunta and the Spiegel restaurant.

Also known as the Oude Staat (Little Netherlands), Kota Lama is neatly arranged, resembling cities in Europe.