Jawa Barat, Indonesia — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Jawa Barat known for?

Jawa Barat is the homeland of the Sundanese people, Indonesia's second-largest ethnic group. Volcanoes define it. A chain of peaks led by Mount Ciremai rises above tea estates, hot springs, and the cool highland bowl that holds Bandung, the province's capital and creative centre.

The Puncak pass draws weekenders up through terraced plantations, while surfers head south to the Indian Ocean sands at Pangandaran. In 1955 Bandung hosted the Asian-African Conference. That gathering put the city on the world map.

Where is Jawa Barat?

Jawa Barat fills the western end of the island of Java, the mountainous core of the old Preanger highlands. Banten province and the capital region of Jakarta press against it in the west, Central Java lies to the east, the Java Sea washes its northern lowlands, and the Indian Ocean pounds the south coast. The land climbs inland. A spine of volcanoes runs the length of the province, active and dormant peaks that top out on Mount Ciremai near the Central Java border.

Bandung sits high among them, in a broad plateau bowl that keeps it far cooler than the steamy northern plain. Bekasi, the largest city, sprawls the other way, absorbed into the built-up edge of greater Jakarta. The province's rivers carve out everything else.

The Citarum, the longest river in West Java, rises in the southern highlands and winds north across the rice plains to the Java Sea, feeding reservoirs and paddies on the way. Its north coast is flat, silted, and lined with fishing towns and ports. The south is the opposite.

There the mountains drop almost straight into the surf, and beaches such as Pangandaran break against open Indian Ocean swell with almost no shelf between the peaks and the sea.

What is Jawa Barat like?

This is Sunda, and its people set the tone. The Sundanese are the second-largest ethnic group in Indonesia, and their language, distinct from Javanese, is heard from Bandung's campuses to the terraced villages of the interior. Their arts travel well.

The angklung, a tuned bamboo rattle shaken in ensembles, was inscribed on UNESCO's heritage list, and wayang golek rod puppets act out old epics without a screen. Jaipongan, a percussive Sundanese dance, was born in the Bandung and Karawang lowlands. Sundanese cooking runs to the fresh and the fiery.

Raw vegetables come as lalab with a fierce sambal, karedok mixes them in peanut sauce, and rice steamed in banana leaf is served as nasi timbel. Islam is near-universal, layered over older village customs that still govern places like Kampung Naga. On the north coast, Cirebon keeps its own courtly kraton culture and a batik marked by billowing storm-cloud motifs.

Bandung pulls in a different crowd. Its university, the Institut Teknologi Bandung, and a long design and music scene make the capital the youthful, restless counterweight to the quiet farming country around it.

What is the history of Jawa Barat?

Western Java carries some of Indonesia's oldest history. Its story starts on the rivers. Tarumanagara, a Hindu kingdom on the northern rivers, left stone inscriptions from the 5th century.

The Sunda Kingdom followed and held the west for centuries from Pakuan Pajajaran, the royal seat that grew into modern Bogor, until the Banten Sultanate and then three hundred years of Dutch rule took over. The Dutch turned the highlands into coffee estates and made Bandung their hill retreat. Jawa Barat became one of the first provinces of the new republic in 1945, and Banten was split from its western end in 2000.

What is the climate of Jawa Barat?

Elevation decides the weather here. The north coast around Bekasi and Cirebon stays hot and sticky all year, while Bandung and the Puncak highlands keep a mild, spring-like cool that first drew the Dutch uphill. Rain follows the monsoon.

The heaviest downpours run from about November to April, and Bogor, catching moist air against the mountains, ranks among the most thunderstorm-prone towns on earth. The drier months from mid-year are the easier time to climb the volcanoes.

How do you get to Jawa Barat?

Most visitors reach Jawa Barat through Jakarta. Soekarno-Hatta, the country's main airport, sits just across the border in Banten, and a short drive or train carries arrivals into the province. The Whoosh high-speed line, Southeast Asia's first, links Jakarta to the edge of Bandung in under an hour.

That trip once took half a day. West Java also runs its own long-haul airport at Kertajati, in the Majalengka lowlands, which absorbed the flights from Bandung's Husein Sastranegara. Toll roads climb from the capital along the Cipularang route, while the southern beaches at Pangandaran still mean a long drive over the mountains.