TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsJakarta’s heavy burden
Building more infrastructure and opening real economic opportunities in the outer cities and beyond will help relieve Jakarta’s heavy burden.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Densely populated neighborhoods are seen on May 28, 2025, on the riverbank over the Angke River in Pejagalan, Penjaringan, North Jakarta. Insufficient space and improper sanitation has forced some families on low-income, living in slums across Jakarta, to practice open defecation. (JP/Gembong Hanung)
A
fter being branded with the world’s worst traffic and air pollution, Jakarta, or Greater Jakarta, to be more precise, has now been crowned as the world’s most populous city.
The title was based on a report issued by a United Nations think tank that calculated the population of the metropolitan area at 42 million people, outnumbering Dhaka’s 37 million and Tokyo’s 33 million.
Rather than relying on national figures from institutions like Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the UN observed the “degree of urbanization”, and estimation of populations living in cities, towns and rural areas that are comparable across countries.
The new definition pushed Greater Jakarta to the top of the table for this year’s edition of the report.
The rank is by no means a reason to celebrate. Neither is it an achievement. Instead, it may reflect inequality of opportunities in the country, and encourage the Jakarta provisional administration and the central government to take all necessary actions to counter the risks of increasing population numbers in the megacity.
The UN acknowledges that urbanization is on an upward trend globally. But in Indonesia, most of the economic opportunities are centralized in Jakarta, rendering its outlying urban areas as particularly reliant on the megacity's center.
Jakarta's per capita gross regional domestic product of Rp 344 million (US$20,607) is the highest in the country. Banten and West Java provinces, parts of which are in Greater Jakarta, trail far behind with Rp 70 million and Rp 56 million, respectively.
