What You Need To Know

Medan is the capital of North Sumatra province in Indonesia. Located on the northern coast, and with 2,097,610 inhabitants at the 2010 census, Medan is third largest city in Indonesia (behind Jakartaand Surabaya), and the largest Indonesian city outside Java. Its built-up (or metro) area made of 18 municipalities or districts was home to 4,103,696 inhabitants at the 2010 census. The city is bordered by the Deli Serdang Regency to the east, south and west, and the Strait of Malacca to the north. The city was known as Deli when it was established by Dutch tobacco commerce after the formation of the Deli Company. The Deli Railway was established for shipping. Rubber, tea, timber, palm oil, and sugar industries followed. Medan was dubbed by the Dutch Parijs van Soematra due to the city’s resemblance to Paris. Lamudi, a worldwide real estate portal, recognized Medan as one among six cities in Asia to feature and preserve several colonial architectural sites, while accompanying its growth as a metropolitan city.

Area: 265.10 km²

Population: 2,181,983

Currency

The Indonesian Rupiah is the official currency.

 Culture

Medan is inhabited by many different ethnic groups, mostly Malay, Batak, Javanese, Padang, and Chinese. Malay people are the natives of the Medan area, and have deep roots in Medan. They began ruling there during the Deli empire (Kesultanan Deli) until now. The empire has many lands and property of heritage in Medan, such as Istana Maimoon, Mesjid Raya Medan, Sultan Deli Pool and many more. The Javanese are transmigrants. Many of them were forced to move there by the government during transmigration programs.

Language

Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. It is a standardized register of Malay, an Austronesian language that has been used as a lingua franca in the multilingual Indonesian archipelago for centuries.

Health

• Universal Health Coverage. In January 2014, the Indonesian government launched Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional (JKN), a scheme to implement universal health care in Indonesia. It is expected that spending on healthcare will increase by 12{7df95265f31a0ac53c3b5b00a18f9c9b9773c684fe0574066c0ba8b20f8a9fce} a year and reach US$46 billion a year by 2019.

   

Transport

Medan is well-connected by road, air, rail and sea. There are plenty of options for public transport within city and intercity.

Weather

Under the Köppen climate classification, Medan features a tropical rainforest climate with no real dry season. Medan does have noticeably wetter and drier months, with its driest month (February) on average seeing about one third of the precipitation of its wettest month (October). Temperatures in the city average approximately 27 degrees Celsius throughout the course of the year. Annual precipitation in the Medan is around 2200 mm.