Indonesia is planning to move its capital from Jakarta in Java to a new city in East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. The move is in part to relieve pressure on traffic-clogged Jakarta, which is sinking, polluted and crowded. A new capital city would also be a way of symbolically centralising the government, which is seen as being too Java-centric.

The idea of moving the capital has been around since independence, with president Soekarno (1945-1967) planning to move the capital to Palangkaraya in Kalimantan. President Yudhoyono (2004-2014) also floated the idea.

The latest push to move the capital was proposed by President Jokowi shortly after winning his second term in 2019. Indonesian presidents can only serve two terms, and this costly and difficult project would have been too controversial to run as a first-term election policy.

A number of locations were short-listed, including Palangkaraya in Kalimantan (president Soekarno’s original choice). Kalimantan was the preferred region as it’s close to the geographical centre of Indonesia.

The chosen location is an area split between North Penajam Paser Regency and Kutai Kartanegara Regency in East Kalimantan. This is roughly between Balikpapan and Samarinda.

It’s worth noting that’s it’s the capital that is moving, not the whole of Jakarta, as if it was possible to somehow relocate a city of 10 million+ people. Running alongside the news of the new capital has been news articles of how Jakarta is sinking into the sea, and it is being abandoned. While it’s true that the city is sinking, and rising sea levels will also cause chaos, Jakarta is still planning for the future and it’s projected to be the world’s largest city.

Work was supposed to start on the new city in 2020, but then COVID-19 happened. At this point it is unclear what the future of the new capital is. Jokowi is president until 2024, so he will have until then to execute this legacy-defining project.