Indonesia · Provinsi Kalimantan Timur
Where to Stay in Balikpapan, Provinsi Kalimantan Timur
Balikpapan is a city of East Kalimantan in Indonesia, an oil port on the coast of Borneo, the jumping-off point for the new Indonesian capital rising in the forest nearby.
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Where to stay in Balikpapan
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Rooms in Balikpapan divide between the harbour town and the coast. The streets around the harbour keep the markets, the war memorial, and the port within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the city. The warm bay lies below.
Ships ride at anchor offshore. Out along the shore and the mangroves, the town gives way to the sandy beaches, the coastal forest, and the wild bays of the strait. A room by the sea trades the streets for the palm beaches, the mangrove creeks, and the monkeys in the trees.
The forest runs down to the shore. Stay downtown for the port, or by the sea for the beaches. The oil city sits on its Borneo bay.
About Balikpapan
Balikpapan is the oil port of eastern Borneo.
What is Balikpapan known for?
On a bay of the Makassar Strait in East Kalimantan in Indonesia, it grew as an oil town and harbour, and it keeps the great refinery and port that made it, the war memorials of a fierce Pacific battle, the mangroves and proboscis monkeys of its bay, and the road inland to the new capital of the country. Warm strait water washes up along the bay. Green forest rings the town.
What are the main landmarks in Balikpapan?
The war memorials are a mark of Balikpapan. The monuments to the Australian and Japanese dead of the nineteen forty-five battle stand above the bay, a memory of the Pacific war, downtown. Monkeys swing in the mangroves.
The proboscis monkeys of the bay leap through the coastal forest nearby, while the oil refinery, the town beaches, and the road to the new capital mark the country around Balikpapan.
What is the history of Balikpapan?
Balikpapan was born from oil. In eighteen ninety-seven the first well was drilled on the bay, and a boom town of derricks and refineries rose on the coast of Borneo. War came to the oil town.
In the Second World War the great oilfields drew fierce fighting, and in nineteen forty-five Australian troops stormed ashore in one of the last landings of the Pacific war. Oil rebuilt the ruined city. From the ashes of the war Balikpapan rose again as the oil capital of Kalimantan, its refinery and port busy with the trade of Borneo.
The forest kept its wild things. In the mangroves of the bay the proboscis monkeys still swung through the trees, and on the beaches the townsfolk swam, while inland the country began to raise a whole new capital, so Balikpapan kept its oil, its bay, and its forest. The refineries still light the night.
Balikpapan keeps its oil port on the Borneo coast.
Where is Balikpapan?
Balikpapan lies on the east coast of Borneo, on a bay of the Makassar Strait in East Kalimantan. The city sits on low green hills above the sea, wrapped in tropical forest and mangrove, with the strait to the east and the rainforests of Borneo rolling inland to the west. The warm strait laps the coast.
Forest crowds the low hills.
What is the climate of Balikpapan?
Balikpapan has a hot, humid equatorial climate. Warm wet weather holds all year on the coast, with heavy rains through the seasons and steamy heat the year round. The rains fall almost daily.
Warm air hangs over the forest.
How do you get to Balikpapan?
Balikpapan lies on the east coast of Borneo, the main way into East Kalimantan. Flights land from Jakarta across the sea, and roads and boats run up the coast and inland. Ferries cross the bay. Samarinda lies north up the coast.
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More cities in Provinsi Kalimantan Timur
Updated August 2026